History
list | QuAC_dialog_id
stringlengths 36
36
| Question
stringlengths 3
114
| Question_no
int64 1
12
| Rewrite
stringlengths 11
338
| true_page_title
stringlengths 3
42
| true_contexts
stringlengths 1.4k
9.79k
| answer
stringlengths 2
233
| true_contexts_wiki
stringlengths 0
145k
| extractive
bool 2
classes | retrieved_contexts
list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable."
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Where did they film?
| 3 |
Where did Gigi (1958 film) was filmed when the weather became unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
Paris.
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| true |
[
"Film at Eleven Media, LLC is a documentary production company based out of Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2008 by Michelle Mitchell and Ed Head, Film at Eleven produces \"responsibly rogue\" investigative journalism projects, and documentary films \"to keep you ahead of the news narrative in a fun, non-partisan and smart way.\" Their first film, Haiti: Where Did the Money Go? (2012) won the 2013 Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary. They are currently in postproduction for The Uncondemned.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nFilm production companies of the United States",
"I Did It may refer to:\n\n \"I Did It\" (Dave Matthews Band song), 2001\n \"I Did It\" (Spica song), 2014\n \"I Did It\" (DJ Khaled song), 2021\n I Did It (film), a 1909 short film\n \"I Did It\", a 1970 song by Barbara Acklin, written by Eugene Record\n \"I Did It\", a 1970 song by The Dynamites, written by Clancy Eccles\nIf I Did It, a 2007 novel by O. J. Simpson and Pablo Fenjves (sometimes stylized where \"if\" is not easily visible on the cover)"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,"
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Did they like filming in California?
| 4 |
Did Gigi (1958 film) crew like filming in California?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| false |
[
"Letters from a Killer is a 1998 British-American crime drama mystery film starring Patrick Swayze as a man who is falsely convicted of the murder of his wife. During his time in jail, he finds comfort from four women with whom he corresponds. After his second court appearance, he is finally freed from prison only to be framed for yet two more murders which he did not commit.\n\nThe movie is directed by David Carson, and also stars Gia Carides, Kim Myers, Olivia Birkelund, and Tina Lifford. It was directed by David Carson and writing by John Foster, Nicholas Hicks-Beach, and Shelley Miller.\n\nFilming locations\n Echo, Utah\n Fair Oaks, California\n Ione, California\n Jordanelle Reservoir, Utah\n Los Angeles, California\n New Orleans, Louisiana\n Reno, Nevada\n Sacramento, California\n Salt Lake City, Utah\n Wendover, Nevada\n Woodland, California\n Glendora, California\n\nHalting of filming\nLetters from a Killer was originally supposed to be finished earlier than its release, but filming was halted for two months due to Patrick Swayze suffering serious injuries when he fell off his horse in May 1997 and hit a tree. He ended up with both legs broken and four tendons in his shoulder immediately became detached. Although it was eventually released, Swayze was reported to have trouble resuming his career.\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n\n1998 films\n1990s crime thriller films\nAmerican films\nFilms scored by Dennis McCarthy\nFilms shot in California\nFilms shot in Los Angeles\nFilms shot in New Orleans\nFilms shot in Nevada\nFilms shot in Utah\nFilms shot in Salt Lake City\n1990s prison films\nFilms directed by David Carson",
"Eureka Federal Savings was a San Carlos, California, based thrift, which operated primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, with 35 branches at the thrift's height. Founded in 1890, it was one of the oldest savings and loan organizations in California. Being a savings and loan, it was known primary for interest bearing accounts, certificates of deposit, and home loans, before its eventual downfall.\n\nCollapse\nLike many other savings and loans of its time, Eureka Federal made risky investments in the 1980s, primarily in the Las Vegas, Nevada, casino market. Many of its investments soured, and the thrift was seized by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation in 1988. It was sold to private investors, and became EurekaBank, a Federal Savings Bank.\n\nSponsorships\nEureka Federal Savings was the sponsor of the one-time Eureka Federal Savings Classic, a pro golf tournament on the Champions Tour, held in San Francisco in 1981.\n\nPopular culture\nThe Eureka Federal Savings name was revived, temporarily, for filming of the 2008 film Milk. During filming on Castro Street, the U.S. Bank branch, the final owner of Eureka's assets, was temporarily rebranded as Eureka Federal Savings, for a certain scene in the movie.\n\nDefunct banks of the United States\nBanks established in 1890\n1890 establishments in California\nBanks disestablished in 1988\n1988 disestablishments in California\nSavings and loan crisis"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,",
"Did they like filming in California?",
"unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,"
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
When were they able to finish the score?
| 5 |
When were Gigi (1958 film) crew able to finish the score?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune.
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| true |
[
"The Mazda 767/767B are prototype racing cars that were built by Mazdaspeed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans running under the IMSA-spec GTP class. The 767 replaced the 757 in 1988, upgrading to a newer and larger 4-rotor 13J Wankel engine which produced nearly .\n\nTwo 767s were entered at 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing 17th and 19th overall, however they finished behind a sole 757 which was able to finish 15th. In the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, Mazda managed 4th in the constructors' championship. For 1989, Mazda upgraded the 767 into the 767B, and initially tested it in the IMSA 24 Hours of Daytona, where it was successful in finishing 5th overall. Later in the year, Mazda returned to Le Mans with two 767Bs as well as an older 767. The 767Bs were able to finish 7th and 9th overall, while the lone 767 was able to finish 12th. However, in JSPC, the results were not as promising, as Mazda finished a mere 5th in the championship. For 1990, a single 767B was entered alongside two newer 787s, and was the only car of the three to finish, although in 20th overall.\n\n767\nIMSA GTP cars\nCars powered by Wankel engines\n24 Hours of Le Mans race cars\nGroup C cars",
"The 2019 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team represented the Georgia Institute of Technology during the 2019 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Yellow Jackets were led by head coach Geoff Collins, in his first season. They played their home games at Bobby Dodd Stadium and competed as a member of the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). They finished the season 3–9, 2–6 in ACC play to finish in last place in the Coastal Division.\n\nPreseason\n\nPreseason award watch lists\nListed in the order that they were released\n\nPreseason media poll\n\nIn the preseason ACC media poll, Georgia Tech was predicted to finish last in the Coastal Division.\n\nPrevious season \nThe Yellow Jackets finished the 2018 season 7–6, 5–3 in ACC play to finish in second place in the Coastal Division. They were invited to the Quick Lane Bowl, where they lost to Minnesota.\n\nSchedule\n\nGame summaries\n\nat Clemson\n\nA surprisingly positive start for Tech almost immediately turned into a wreck very early in the game. Tech defended Clemson's high-powered offense very well, earning a 3 and out on Clemson's first drive. However, all of Tech's momentum evaporated when the ensuing Clemson punt was fumbled deep in Tech territory. Clemson recovered the fumble and scored, the first 7 of 28 points in the half. Tech was able to find its defensive footing in fits and starts, but big plays broke through for Clemson, including a 90-yard run on a delayed draw by Travis Etienne. Tech's best defensive play of the night would be a 41-yard interception return by Tre Swilling to the 2 yard line, which ultimately led to Tech throwing an interception on 4th & goal. Tech would later score 2 touchdowns in the second half, along with Clemson scoring 24 points to make the final score 52-14 Clemson.\n\nSouth Florida\n\nGeorgia Tech secured the win over South Florida by way of USF mistakes, a strong defensive performance, and excellent special teams play. As the GT offense continues to solidify their long term offensive gameplan, they were able to do just enough to outscore the USF offense. Aided by numerous penalties on the USF defense, the Jackets moved the ball mostly via rushing plays while playing with a patchwork offensive line after a rash of injuries at those positions. The defensive penalties and costly fumbles made up the list of USF mistakes, with the biggest miscue being a fumble on the goal line while trying to score the go-ahead touchdown. The Tech defense was able to secure that fumble, all the while limiting USF's production throughout the day. From the many pass breakups to the 9 TFLs, the Jackets defense stifled USF for most of the day. Finally, the performance of Tech's special teams provided a big lift and was a major contributor to the first win of the Geoff Collins Era. Marred only by a widely missed 51-yard field goal attempt and one shanked punt, Tech's special teams was a definite positive on the day. Tech's Pressley Harvin III was able to pin USF consistently within the 15-yard line with 2 of the punt returns resulting in fumbles (one recovered by each team). Kick coverage and returns were executed with little drama and were consistently well-executed. With the win, Tech avoided its first 0–2 start in 30 years.\n\nThe Citadel\n\nThe Citadel, with their triple option style of play, dominated time of possession, clocking in at 41:50 to Tech's 18:10. The Jackets struggled offensively, managing only 301 total yards compared to the Bulldogs' 320 rushing yards.\n\nThe loss is a historic one for Georgia Tech. It marks Tech's first loss to an FCS opponent since a 1983 loss to Furman 36 years prior. This is also The Citadel's first win over an ACC opponent, previously going 0–22 against members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and The Citadel's first win against the Jackets, failing to beat them in the previous 10 matchups.\n\nat Temple\n\nThe meeting is the first between the universities. Coach Geoff Collins was Temple's coach the previous season and left them after building up their program towards a top tier AAC team.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nFacing off against UNC for the Yellow Jackets home ACC opening, they initially went scoreless in the first half. The Yellow Jackets managed to score 22 points in the second half, but ultimately was not enough to overcome the point deficit. The game marked the first career start for redshirt freshman James Graham, though he shared some early snaps with running QB Tobias Oliver.\n\nat Duke\n\nat Miami (FL)\n\nThree missed field goals by Miami kickers sent the game into overtime which led Georgia Tech to break a 4 game losing streak. As like the last game in Miami played 2 years prior, the game came down to the final play where Miami turned the ball over on downs just a few inches short of the line to gain during the overtime period.\n\nPittsburgh\n\nat Virginia\n\nVirginia Tech\n\nNC State\n\nGeorgia\n\nPlayers drafted into the NFL\n\nReferences\n\nGeorgia Tech\nGeorgia Tech Yellow Jackets football seasons\nGeorgia Tech Yellow Jackets football"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,",
"Did they like filming in California?",
"unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,",
"When were they able to finish the score?",
"By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune."
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Is there any other interesting information?
| 6 |
Besides the score Is there any other interesting information about Gigi (1958 film)?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque.
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| false |
[
"DiscoveryBox is a children's magazine by Bayard Presse. It is targeted at children from 9 to 12 years old. Inside there are topics about science, animals, current events, nature, history and the world. It also includes games and quizzes. It is designed for the completely independent reader and is the 3rd and final instalment of the Box series (after StoryBox and AdventureBox).\n\nDiscoveryBox is mostly non fictional and is designed to answer questions and expand the knowledge of its readers in the subjects that it covers each month.\n\nThere is a current shortage in this type of information rich magazine for this age group at the moment and children find the magazine very interesting. It is designed to build on what they have learned in School and it takes many of its subjects from the British Curriculum so reinforces what they have learned as well as adding additional interesting facts that they may not have previously known about.\n\nBecause there is a shortage of information magazines for children this age, both ESL and English speaking students like to read this book as the information is specially presented for them. As it is specifically designed for the ages 9 to 12 the magazine takes subjects that they would find interesting such as The Olympic Games, Space Exploration and Avalanches being just a few of the previous topics covered.\n\nIn July 2009 DiscoveryBox collaborated with the movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with a behind-the-scenes look at 3D animation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n DiscoveryBox Website\n DiscoveryBox Information Page\n Bayard English magazine Website\n\nChildren's magazines published in France\nFrench-language magazines\nMonthly magazines published in France\nMagazines established in 1995",
"In mathematics, an approximate group is a subset of a group which behaves like a subgroup \"up to a constant error\", in a precise quantitative sense (so the term approximate subgroup may be more correct). For example, it is required that the set of products of elements in the subset be not much bigger than the subset itself (while for a subgroup it is required that they be equal). The notion was introduced in the 2010s but can be traced to older sources in additive combinatorics.\n\nFormal definition \n\nLet be a group and ; for two subsets we denote by the set of all products . A non-empty subset is a -approximate subgroup of if: \n It is symmetric, that is if then ; \n There exists a subset of cardinality such that . \nIt is immediately verified that a 1-approximate subgroup is the same thing as a genuine subgroup. Of course this definition is only interesting when is small compared to (in particular, any subset is a -approximate subgroup). In applications it is often used with being fixed and going to infinity.\n\nExamples of approximate subgroups which are not groups are given by symmetric intervals and more generally arithmetic progressions in the integers. Indeed, for all the subset is a 2-approximate subgroup: the set is contained in the union of the two translates and of . A generalised arithmetic progression in is a subset in of the form , and it is a -approximate subgroup.\n\nA more general example is given by balls in the word metric in finitely generated nilpotent groups.\n\nClassification of approximate subgroups \n\nApproximate subgroups of the integer group were completely classified by Imre Z. Ruzsa and Freiman. The result is stated as follows: \nFor any there are such that for any -approximate subgroup there exists a generalised arithmetic progression generated by at most integers and containing at least elements, such that . \nThe constants can be estimated sharply. In particular is contained in at most translates of : this means that approximate subgroups of are \"almost\" generalised arithmetic progressions.\n\nThe work of Breuillard–Green–Tao (the culmination of an effort started a few years earlier by various other people) is a vast generalisation of this result. In a very general form its statement is the following: \nLet ; there exists such that the following holds. Let be a group and a -approximate subgroup in . There exists subgroups with finite and nilpotent such that , the subgroup generated by contains , and with . \nThe statement also gives some information on the characteristics (rank and step) of the nilpotent group .\n\nIn the case where is a finite matrix group the results can be made more precise, for instance: \nLet . For any there is a constant such that for any finite field , any simple subgroup and any -approximate subgroup then either is contained in a proper subgroup of , or , or . \nThe theorem applies for example to ; the point is that the constant does not depend on the cardinality of the field. In some sense this says that there are no interesting approximate subgroups (besides genuine subgroups) in finite simple linear groups (they are either \"trivial\", that is very small, or \"not proper\", that is almost equal to the whole group).\n\nApplications \n\nThe Breuillard–Green–Tao theorem on classification of approximate groups can be used to give a new proof of Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth. The result obtained is actually a bit stronger since it establishes that there exists a \"growth gap\" between virtually nilpotent groups (of polynomial growth) and other groups; that is, there exists a (superpolynomial) function such that any group with growth function bounded by a multiple of is virtually nilpotent.\n\nOther applications are to the construction of expander graphs from the Cayley graphs of finite simple groups, and to the related topic of superstrong approximation.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nGroup theory\nGeometric group theory\nAdditive combinatorics"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,",
"Did they like filming in California?",
"unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,",
"When were they able to finish the score?",
"By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque."
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Is there any other interesting information?
| 7 |
In addition to filming in Paris and Californiya is there any other interesting information Gigi (1958 film)?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque.
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| false |
[
"DiscoveryBox is a children's magazine by Bayard Presse. It is targeted at children from 9 to 12 years old. Inside there are topics about science, animals, current events, nature, history and the world. It also includes games and quizzes. It is designed for the completely independent reader and is the 3rd and final instalment of the Box series (after StoryBox and AdventureBox).\n\nDiscoveryBox is mostly non fictional and is designed to answer questions and expand the knowledge of its readers in the subjects that it covers each month.\n\nThere is a current shortage in this type of information rich magazine for this age group at the moment and children find the magazine very interesting. It is designed to build on what they have learned in School and it takes many of its subjects from the British Curriculum so reinforces what they have learned as well as adding additional interesting facts that they may not have previously known about.\n\nBecause there is a shortage of information magazines for children this age, both ESL and English speaking students like to read this book as the information is specially presented for them. As it is specifically designed for the ages 9 to 12 the magazine takes subjects that they would find interesting such as The Olympic Games, Space Exploration and Avalanches being just a few of the previous topics covered.\n\nIn July 2009 DiscoveryBox collaborated with the movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with a behind-the-scenes look at 3D animation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n DiscoveryBox Website\n DiscoveryBox Information Page\n Bayard English magazine Website\n\nChildren's magazines published in France\nFrench-language magazines\nMonthly magazines published in France\nMagazines established in 1995",
"In mathematics, an approximate group is a subset of a group which behaves like a subgroup \"up to a constant error\", in a precise quantitative sense (so the term approximate subgroup may be more correct). For example, it is required that the set of products of elements in the subset be not much bigger than the subset itself (while for a subgroup it is required that they be equal). The notion was introduced in the 2010s but can be traced to older sources in additive combinatorics.\n\nFormal definition \n\nLet be a group and ; for two subsets we denote by the set of all products . A non-empty subset is a -approximate subgroup of if: \n It is symmetric, that is if then ; \n There exists a subset of cardinality such that . \nIt is immediately verified that a 1-approximate subgroup is the same thing as a genuine subgroup. Of course this definition is only interesting when is small compared to (in particular, any subset is a -approximate subgroup). In applications it is often used with being fixed and going to infinity.\n\nExamples of approximate subgroups which are not groups are given by symmetric intervals and more generally arithmetic progressions in the integers. Indeed, for all the subset is a 2-approximate subgroup: the set is contained in the union of the two translates and of . A generalised arithmetic progression in is a subset in of the form , and it is a -approximate subgroup.\n\nA more general example is given by balls in the word metric in finitely generated nilpotent groups.\n\nClassification of approximate subgroups \n\nApproximate subgroups of the integer group were completely classified by Imre Z. Ruzsa and Freiman. The result is stated as follows: \nFor any there are such that for any -approximate subgroup there exists a generalised arithmetic progression generated by at most integers and containing at least elements, such that . \nThe constants can be estimated sharply. In particular is contained in at most translates of : this means that approximate subgroups of are \"almost\" generalised arithmetic progressions.\n\nThe work of Breuillard–Green–Tao (the culmination of an effort started a few years earlier by various other people) is a vast generalisation of this result. In a very general form its statement is the following: \nLet ; there exists such that the following holds. Let be a group and a -approximate subgroup in . There exists subgroups with finite and nilpotent such that , the subgroup generated by contains , and with . \nThe statement also gives some information on the characteristics (rank and step) of the nilpotent group .\n\nIn the case where is a finite matrix group the results can be made more precise, for instance: \nLet . For any there is a constant such that for any finite field , any simple subgroup and any -approximate subgroup then either is contained in a proper subgroup of , or , or . \nThe theorem applies for example to ; the point is that the constant does not depend on the cardinality of the field. In some sense this says that there are no interesting approximate subgroups (besides genuine subgroups) in finite simple linear groups (they are either \"trivial\", that is very small, or \"not proper\", that is almost equal to the whole group).\n\nApplications \n\nThe Breuillard–Green–Tao theorem on classification of approximate groups can be used to give a new proof of Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth. The result obtained is actually a bit stronger since it establishes that there exists a \"growth gap\" between virtually nilpotent groups (of polynomial growth) and other groups; that is, there exists a (superpolynomial) function such that any group with growth function bounded by a multiple of is virtually nilpotent.\n\nOther applications are to the construction of expander graphs from the Cayley graphs of finite simple groups, and to the related topic of superstrong approximation.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nGroup theory\nGeometric group theory\nAdditive combinatorics"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,",
"Did they like filming in California?",
"unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,",
"When were they able to finish the score?",
"By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters,"
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Why did Charles Walters do the reshoot?
| 8 |
Why did Charles Walters do the Gigi (1958 film) reshoot?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| false |
[
"The Echo (1997) is the fifth crime novel written by award-winning British crime fiction author Minette Walters. Like all of her books, The Echo is a stand-alone (non-series) novel whose characters do not appear in any of her other books. Originally published in English, The Echo has been translated into nine other languages in print and recorded as an ebook in both English and German.\n\nSynopsis\nWhen a homeless man going by the name Billy Blake starves himself to death in the garage of socialite Amanda Powell, journalist Michael Deacon is sent to get the story. Questions abound about Deacon digs into the pasts of both Billy Blake and Amanda Powell: who is Billy Blake? Could he be Amanda's previously vanished husband? Why did he choose to starve himself in her garage and in full view of a freezer full of food? Why is Amanda so interested in Billy Blake and why does she pay for his funeral? Along the investigative path, Deacon encounters an unusual cast of characters from Billy's past as well as his own.\n\nMain characters \n Amanda Powell\n Michael Deacon\n Billy Blake\n\nTelevision adaptation\nIn 1998 this story was adapted for television by the BBC. The cast featured Clive Owen as Michael Deacon and Joely Richardson as Amanda. The show ran for one season.\n\nExternal links \nMore about The Echo on Walters' website\n\nNotes \n\n1997 British novels\nNovels by Minette Walters\nNovels about journalists",
"Charles Powell Walters (November 17, 1911 – August 13, 1982) was an American Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies from the 1940s to the 1960s.\n\nEarly years\nCharles Walters was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Joe Walter and Winifred Taft Walter, who had moved from Tomah, Wisconsin. He changed his last name to Walters in the 1930s because he was \"tired of misspellings\". Walters was educated at Anaheim Union \nHigh School (Class of 1930) and briefly attended the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.\n\nCareer\n\nActor\nShortly after graduating high school in 1931 Walters joined a touring Fanchon & Marco revue as a chorus boy and specialty dancer. After keeping a correspondence with producer, dancer and choreographer Leonard Sillman, Sillman agreed to cast Walters in the revue Low and Behold (1933) which also featured Tyrone Power, Eve Arden and Kay Thompson. The show never reached Broadway, but producer Charles Dillingham hired Sillman as a producer and Walters as a performer for a new Broadway revue, New Faces of 1934 spotlighting up-and-coming talent. Walters had a few dance numbers with Imogene Coca which drew good notices for both. Sillman hired Walters and Coca for another show, ‘’Fools Rush In’’ which flopped. Walters and Sillman parted ways following the fiasco but both remained good friends until Walters’s death.\n\nOn Broadway, Walters danced in Parade (1935) with frequent partner Dorothy Fox, and the Cole Porter-Moss Hart Jubilee (1935) where he introduced \"Begin the Beguine\" and \"Just One of Those Things\". Walters also appeared in the revue The Show is On (1937), directed by Vincente Minnelli, then was in Between the Devil (1937–38) and I Married an Angel (1938).\n\nChoreographer\nWalters was credited as choreographer on the Broadway show Sing Out the News (1938–39). He appeared in Cole Porter's popular Du Barry Was a Lady (1939–40), then choreographed an even more popular Porter work, Let's Face It! (1941–43). He did the dances for Banjo Eyes (1941–42), and went to RKO to work on the \"dance ensembles\" for RKO's Seven Days' Leave (1942).\n\nDance director at MGM\nWalters went to MGM under contract as a dance director. Among the movies he worked on were Presenting Lily Mars (1943) (where he danced with Judy Garland at the end), Du Barry Was a Lady (1943), Best Foot Forward (1943) and Girl Crazy (1943) (where he again danced with Garland, in \"Embraceable You\").\n\nWalters also worked on Broadway Rhythm (1944) and did uncredited choreography on Gaslight (1944) and Since You Went Away (1944). He then did Meet the People (1944), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and Thrill of a Romance (1945). Walters was dance director on Ziegfeld Follies (1945) and did uncredited directing of the segment \"A Great Lady Has an Interview\". He directed the 10-minute short Spreadin' the Jam (1946). He did choreography for Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945) (in which he appeared), Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and Summer Holiday (shot 1946, released 1948).\n\nHe returned to Broadway to choreograph St. Louis Woman (1946).\n\nDirector\nWalters' first credited directorial effort was the musical Good News (1947) with June Allyson and Peter Lawford. He then did, Easter Parade (1948) with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, He also directed Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). which was a mammoth hit for the studio, earning a profit of over $5 million, establishing Walters as a director.\n\nWalters also directed Garland and Gene Kelly in Summer Stock (1950).\n\nHe followed this with his first non-musical comedy Three Guys Named Mike (1951), then the Esther Williams vehicle Texas Carnival (1951). Walters went to Broadway to direct Garland's appearance at the Palace (1951–52) which ran for 266 performances. He went back to Hollywood to do The Belle of New York (1952), which starred Astaire and Vera-Ellen, and was a notable flop.\n\nHe received a Best Director Oscar nomination for the 1953 film Lili, starring Leslie Caron, for which Caron was also Oscar nominated. Walters did another two with Williams, Dangerous When Wet (1953) and Easy to Love (1953). In between these he tried his first drama, Torch Song (1953) with Joan Crawford.\n\nWalters and Caron tried to repeat the success of Lili with The Glass Slipper (1955), but it was not as popular. However a Frank Sinatra-Debbie Reynolds comedy, The Tender Trap, (1955) was well liked, as was the Bing Crosby-Sinatra-Grace Kelly musical High Society (1956).\n\nWalters directed some popular comedies, Don't Go Near the Water (1957) with Glenn Ford, Ask Any Girl (1959) with Shirley MacLaine and David Niven, and Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960) with Doris Day and Niven. He also helped choreograph the number \"The Night They Invented Champagne\" in Gigi (1958) and did some uncredited directing on Cimarron (1960) and Go Naked in the World (1961).\n\nWalters then had two flops, Two Loves (1962) with MacLaine and Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962). He recovered with The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), which earned Debbie Reynolds her only Oscar nomination.\n\nLater career\nWalters' last theatrical film was for Columbia, Walk, Don't Run (1966), which was the last film for Cary Grant.\n\nHe continued to work in television, doing episodes of The Governor & J.J. and Here's Lucy. He directed Lucille Ball in two TV movies, Three for Two (1975) with Jackie Gleason, and What Now, Catherine Curtis? (1976).\n\nBrent Phillips' book, Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance, illuminates Walters' private life as a gay man.\n\nDeath \nWalters died of lung cancer on August 13, 1982, in his home in Malibu, California. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6402 Hollywood Blvd.\n\nFilmography\n\nDirector\n\nZiegfeld Follies (1946)\nGood News (1947)\nEaster Parade (1948)\nThe Barkleys of Broadway (1949)\nAnnie Get Your Gun (1950) (uncredited)\nSummer Stock (1950)\nThree Guys Named Mike (1951)\nTexas Carnival (1951)\nThe Belle of New York (1952)\nLili (1953)\nDangerous When Wet (1953)\nTorch Song (1953)\nEasy to Love (1953)\nThe Glass Slipper (1955)\nThe Tender Trap (1955)\nHigh Society (1956)\nDon't Go Near the Water (1957)\nGigi (1958) (uncredited)\nAsk Any Girl (1959)\nPlease Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)\nCimarron (1960) (uncredited)\nGo Naked in the World (1961) (uncredited)\nTwo Loves (1961)\nBilly Rose's Jumbo (1962)\nThe Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)\nWalk, Don't Run (1966)\n\nActor\n\nPresenting Lily Mars (1943) - Lily's Dance Partner in Finale (uncredited)\nGirl Crazy (1943) - Student (uncredited)\nAbbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945) - Sailor (uncredited)\nLili (1953) - Dance double for Jean-Pierre Aumont (uncredited)\nTorch Song (1953) - Ralph Ellis (uncredited)\nEasy to Love (1953) - Nightclub Dancer with Cyd Charisse (uncredited, last appearance)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1911 births\n1982 deaths\nAmerican male dancers\nAmerican choreographers\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male child actors\nLGBT film directors\nLGBT choreographers\nAmerican gay actors\nPeople from Brooklyn\nFilm directors from California\nDeaths from lung cancer\nDeaths from cancer in California\nUniversity of Southern California alumni\nLGBT people from California\nFilm directors from New York City\n20th-century American dancers\n20th-century American male actors\n20th-century LGBT people"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,",
"Did they like filming in California?",
"unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,",
"When were they able to finish the score?",
"By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters,",
"Why did Charles Walters do the reshoot?",
"Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,"
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Did Lerner make any changes to the script?
| 9 |
Did Lerner make any changes to the Gigi (1958 film) reshoot script?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| true |
[
"Lerner and Loewe refers to the partnership between lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe. Spanning three decades from 1942 to 1960 and again from 1970 to 1972, the pair are known for being behind the creation of critical on stage successes such as My Fair Lady, Brigadoon, and Camelot along with the musical film Gigi.\n\nBackground and previous work\nGrowing up in Austria, Frederick or \"Fritz\" Loewe was a child prodigy concert pianist and son to a Viennese Operetta star, Edmond Loewe. After moving to New York City, he worked as a pianist in German clubs and was accompanist for silent films but never had a partnership before working with Lerner.\nConversely, Alan Lerner was born in New York City and attended Harvard where his first musical theater contributions came from working on collegiate Hasty Pudding musicals. Early in his career at Harvard he collaborated with Leonard Bernstein but also did not have any official partnerships until he crossed paths with Loewe.\n\nMeeting\nIn August 1942 at the Lambs Club in New York City 24 year old American, Alan Jay Lerner and 41 year old Austrian, Frederick Loewe, officially met one another. As recounted by Lerner, the two men met by chance when Loewe took a wrong turn on his way to the bathroom. Loewe asked Lerner if he wrote lyrics and upon affirmation, Loewe asked if he wanted to write with him. The two began working together immediately afterward.\n\nEarly work\n\nWhile the two were quick to work with each other, the initial two musicals Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe worked on were not a commercial success and would be heavily regarded today as \"flops\", \nThe very first of their collaborations, Life of the Party was worked on in 1942 at a stock company in Detroit, ran for 9 weeks and never made it to a Broadway stage. The first of their productions to make it to Broadway was What's Up?, which received generally (if mildly) favorable reviews but was not a commercial success. Lerner later wrote that the musical ran for only one week before closing, but it in fact ran from November 11, 1943, to January 4, 1944, closing after 63 performances.\n\nThe pair achieved some small success in 1945 with The Day Before Spring. This production opened at the National Theatre in late November and closed approximately one year later in April 1946. Despite the short run, a Billboard magazine critic gave the musical a favorable review from its opening at the Shubert Theatre in Boston and deemed Lerner and Loewe \"potential supermen.\"\n\nBrigadoon\n\nBrigadoon was the pair's first significant hit. Loewe and Lerner reportedly auditioned their music fifty times before successfully finding investors to help mount their production.\nBrigadoon's plot centers on two New York natives that happen upon a village while in Scotland that is enchanted by magic and appears only once every century. The material was said to be inspired by the stories of James M. Barrie and also a direct quote from Frederick Loewe \"faith can move mountains.\" The original Broadway production opened in 1947 at the Ziegfeld Theatre and won the Drama Critics Award for Best Musical of the Year. In 1949 Brigadoon opened at the West End Theatre in London and has experienced several successful revivals as well as a film starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse.\n\nPaint Your Wagon\n\nRegarded by the duo as a \"success, but not a hit\", Paint Your Wagon opened in 1951 at the Shubert Theatre to mixed reviews. The story takes place in California during the Gold Rush and focuses on the relationship between a father who works as a miner and his daughter.\nTwo years after its New York opening, the musical made its West End debut in 1953 and ran for nearly 500 performances.\nYears later in 1969 Lerner had asked Loewe to return to the project to specifically write new songs for the film version. Loewe, who had since retired, declined, but gave Lerner permission to collaborate with Andre Previn for the additional songs. The one rule Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe abided by for the entirety of their partnership was that if one wished to work with another lyricist or composer, he must tell the other; this also applied for any time someone requested to work with either one of them. While Lerner received permission and created new songs with Previn specifically for the film, the reception of the movie musical was predominantly negative. The songs that are most popular from this musical were written in its earliest stages with both Lerner and Loewe at the helm including, \"I Was Born Under a Wand'rin' Star\", \"They Call the Wind Maria and \"I Talk To The Trees\".\"\n\nMy Fair Lady\n\nMy Fair Lady opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. While both Lerner and Loewe were interested in adapting George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion into a musical early on in the process, they struggled significantly with creating a musical that would fit the musical constructs in place at the time, i.e flashy chorus, and large ballet sequences.\nAs the result of many frustrated work sessions and the input of Oscar Hammerstein who had also tried to adapt the play with Richard Rodgers and failed, Lerner and Loewe abandoned the project.\n\nDuring their hiatus from what would be regarded as many as their most successful musical, Lerner concentrated his efforts on a musical based on the Li'l Abner comic, but was one day reminded of Pygmalion when he camee across news of the passing of Gabriel Pascal, the film producer who had brought the opportunity to the duo in the first place.\n\nAfter reevaluating the state of the musical theater \"rules\" -- or, rather, the new lack of them -- and determining that it was no longer necessary to have a subplot or larger-than-life ensemble, in 1954 both Lerner and Loewe resumed the project and continued their efforts on the adaptation.\n\nThe main goal of Lerner and Loewe was not simply to do justice to the original text, but to create the right songs to emphasize character. It took many failed attempts, tossing out unneeded songs and long hours at the piano before coming across the style they both wished to utilize, the dramatization of characters' inner turmoil. It was during work on this musical that Lerner and Loewe spent the most time perfecting songs. This came not just at the piano and consisted of playing music, but of talking out moments in the musical and what they both wanted to achieve from these moments.\n\nWhen they were at the piano, Lerner has said of Loewe's style that he would often enter dreamlike states where he would continuously play until a musical moment appeared that they were both overjoyed with.\n\nIt wasn't until the tail end of the process with previews looming that Lerner and Loewe finally decided on a name for the musical. Loewe's vote was for \"Fanfaroon\", but Lerner believed that bore too close a resemblance to Brigadoon. He, along with the rest of the creative team, decided that out of all of their options, they disliked My Fair Lady the least.\n\nThe year it opened My Fair Lady won 6 of the 10 Tony Awards for which it was nominated and also won the Theatre World Award for Outstanding New York City Stage Debut Performance. During the time it played it set the record for the longest running Broadway musical, and has had numerous revivals since the original production.\n\nGigi\n\nFour years after My Fair Lady opened, Lerner sought to collaborate with Loewe on a film. Due to it being outside of stage work, Loewe at first passed on the opportunity, but relented after reading the script.\n\nWhile in Paris getting ready to start shooting, Lerner, being more likely to make impulsive decisions, bought a blue Rolls-Royce and convinced Loewe to buy a grey one in an exchange that lasted less than five minutes at the car dealership. The very first film preview of Gigi was not well-received, and it was a combination of the reactions and Lerner and Loewe's own unhappiness with the film that led them to rewrite and re-shoot, costing them $300,000.\n\nHowever, these changes were well-received and Gigi won nine Academy Awards, at that time holding the record for the most Oscars won by a single film production.\n\nCamelot\n\nMuch like Pygmalion, inspiration came to Lerner for working on Camelot from a book, this time, T.H White's The Once and Future King. Loewe had to be more strongly convinced of its commercial appeal, but ultimately was won over.\n\nCamelot was an immensely hard production for the duo with the opening preview running four and a half hours and the director, Moss Hart, being hospitalized from a heart attack in the middle of previews, forcing Lerner to take over as director and causing tension between Lerner and Loewe. While it was at first difficult to gain the traction they were looking for, the cast's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show brought the production great success and ended up resulting in Camelot's total profits grossing over seven figures. \n\nLoewe stated to Lerner that Camelot would be his last show before his retirement and, true to his word, parted with Lerner.\n\nWorking relationship and personalities\nOne element Lerner stated was instrumental to his partnership with Loewe was Loewe's patience. Lerner's creative process could take as little as a few hours, and as much as a few weeks, yet he never felt pressured nor shamed by his counterpart. While Loewe did not require as long periods of time to compose his music as Lerner required to write lyrics, he could often be very uncertain in his choices and Lerner was able to provide him with reassurance.\n\nThe two were also partial to working in the early morning, particularly Lerner who believed all of his best writing was done as soon as he awakened.\n\nIn terms of personality, the two could not be more opposite. Lerner, the younger of the two and having been raised in New York, always had an eagerness about him and was quick speaking and moving. Loewe, the older of the two and having been brought up in Austria, was more experienced and cynical. However, each understood the other and they developed a very deep friendship.\n\nFinal collaboration\n\nTheir last collaboration came with the 1974 musical film The Little Prince. The All Movie reviewer wrote: \"Although Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe crafted a hummable and entertaining score, it is not among their best work; worse, its tone and style are frequently at odds with the story.\"\n\nLerner said this of Loewe:\n\"There will never be another Fritz... Writing will never again be as much fun. A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more than I understood or misunderstood him and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me.\"\n\nIn The New York Times obituary for Loewe, it was written: \"Near the creative peak of their collaboration, Mr. Lerner characterized his working relationship with Mr. Loewe as pleasant and respectful.\"\n\nList of theatre works\n\n Life of the Party (1942)\n What's Up? (1943)\n The Day Before Spring (1945)\n Brigadoon (1947)\n Paint Your Wagon (1951)\n My Fair Lady (1956)\n Camelot (1960)\n Gigi (1973) – stage version adapted from the film\n\nFilms and film adaptations\n\nBrigadoon (1954)\nGigi (1958)\nMy Fair Lady (1964)\nCamelot (1967)\nPaint Your Wagon (1969)\nThe Little Prince (1974)\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\nLees, Gene (2005, originally published 1991). The Musical Worlds of Lerner and Loewe. University of Nebraska Press (bisonbooks.com), \nGreen, Benny, Editor (1987). A Hymn to Him : The Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner. Hal Leonard Corporation. \nLerner, Alan Jay (1985). The Street Where I Live. Da Capo Press. \nGreen, Benny. \"Frederick Loewe, a prince of musical comedy\", The Guardian, February 16, 1988, p. 33\n\nAmerican musical theatre composers\nSongwriting duos\nAmerican musical duos",
"Lois Gail Lerner (born October 12, 1950) is an American attorney and former United States federal civil service employee. Lerner became director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2005, and subsequently became the central figure in the 2013 IRS targeting controversy in the targeting of politically-aligned groups, either denying them tax-exempt status outright or delaying that status until they could no longer take effective part in the 2012 election. On May 10, 2013, in a conference call with reporters, Lerner apologized that Tea Party groups and other groups had been targeted for audits of their applications for tax-exemption. Both conservative and liberal groups were scrutinized. Only three groups — all branches of the Democratic group Emerge America — had tax exemptions revoked. Lerner resigned over the controversy. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, completed in 2015, found \"substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia\" but \"found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.\"\n\nEarly life and education\n\nLerner graduated from Northeastern University. She earned her J.D. from the Western New England College of Law.\n\nCareer before the IRS\nAfter graduating from law school, Lerner became a staff attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division.\n\nLerner then joined the Federal Election Commission's (FEC) general counsel's office as an assistant general counsel in 1981. She spent twenty years at the FEC, being appointed Associate General Counsel for Enforcement (the head of the FEC's Enforcement Division) in 1986. Lerner was acting general counsel for the FEC for the first six months of 2001.\n\nInternal Revenue Service career\nLerner joined the Internal Revenue Service in 2001, as Director of Rulings and Agreements in the Exempt Organizations function of TEGE.\n\nIn January 2006, she was appointed Director Exempt Organizations. In that capacity, Lerner led an organization of 900 IRS tax law enforcement officials responsible for a broad range of compliance activities, including examining the operational and financial activities of exempt organizations, processing applications for tax exemption, providing direction through private letter rulings and technical guidance, and providing customer education and outreach to the exempt community.\n\n2013 IRS controversy \n\nOn May 10, 2013, in advance of a public release of the audit findings, Lerner answered a planted question at a meeting of the American Bar Association (ABA) by stating that the IRS was \"apologetic\" for what she termed \"absolutely inappropriate\" actions. Lerner said that the extra scrutiny had not been centrally planned and had been done by low-level \"front-line people\" in the Cincinnati office. The Washington Post subsequently reported that documents showed that \"IRS officials at the agency's Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups.\" Lerner's superior, then-acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, later testified to Congress that he had discussed with Lerner how she was to make the revelation and apology using a planted question at the ABA meeting, rather than at her appearance two days earlier before the House Ways and Means Committee.\n\nOn May 10, 2013, in a conference call with reporters, Lerner apologized that Tea Party groups and other groups had been targeted for audits of their applications for tax-exemption. Lerner told those on the conference call that, in an attempt to manage the large number of tax-exemption applications between 2010 and 2012, the agency had identified some applicants using \"shortcuts\" such as targeting those applications containing terms like \"Tea Party\" or \"patriots\" in their titles. Lerner said, however, that such actions were not driven by any political agenda, but added, \"We made some mistakes. Some people didn't use good judgment.... For that we're apologetic.\" Lerner also said that only about 25 percent of the flagged applications were Tea Party related, but admitted that any singling out of the groups was \"absolutely inappropriate and not the way we should do things.\"\n\nAdministrative leave and resignation\nOn May 23, 2013, the IRS placed Lerner on paid administrative leave. As her interim replacement, Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel named Ken Corbin, previously Deputy Director of the Submission Processing, Wage, and Investment Division, as acting director of the Exempt Organizations Division. Later, while still on administrative leave, Lerner formally resigned, and retired from the IRS, effective September 23, 2013.\n\n2014 Contempt of Congress citation\nIn May 2014, Lerner was declared in contempt of Congress in connection with her invocation of her Fifth Amendment not to testify on the matter before a congressional committee. The contempt resolution, H.Res. 574, was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on May 7, 2014 by Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California.\n\nOn May 7, 2014, the resolution passed on a 231–187 vote, with all Republicans and six Democrats voting in favor, and every other Democrat opposed. Representative Steve Stockman introduced a measure (never taken up by the House) that, had it been adopted, would have directed Speaker John Boehner to instruct the House sergeant at arms to arrest Lerner for contempt of Congress.\n\nIn a seven-page letter to Speaker Boehner dated March 31, 2015, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen said that the Justice Department would not pursue criminal contempt charges against Lerner. Machen disagreed with Issa's assertion that Lerner had waived her constitutional right against self-incrimination by making an opening statement at a May 2013 hearing in which she made a brief opening remark proclaiming her innocence, before invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege. In a statement, the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote: \"Ms. Lerner did not waive her Fifth Amendment privilege by making general claims of innocence. The Constitution would provide Ms. Lerner with an absolute defense if she were prosecuted for contempt.\"\n\nCongressional subpoenaing of Lerner's email messages\nIn 2014, the House Oversight Committee under Issa issued subpoenas for all of Lerner's email messages. One subpoena directed FEC chairman Lee E. Goodman to turn over all emails sent to or from Lerner, or copied to Lerner, from the past 28 years, stretching back to January 1, 1986, a time before commercialized email existed.\n\nThe House Oversight Committee also subpoenaed the IRS for all e-mails to and from Lerner and various other employees, such as Lerner subordinate Holly Paz, General Counsel William Wilkins and chief of staff Jonathan Davis. At a hearing in March 2014, IRS commissioner John Koskinen said that the IRS had by that time provided 690,000 pages of documents to the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee and 420,000 of redacted documents to the House and Senate oversight committees. Koskinen said that the IRS had spent 10 months and $15 million complying with various investigations to date, and that it could take months or years to comply with broader subpoenas.\n\nIn 2014, in further pursuit of the House of Representatives Congressional inquiry, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), issued a subpoena for all of Lerner's email messages during the time in question. Months later, the IRS informed Congress that they did not have all of her email messages, due to her hard drive crashing, causing them to be irretrievably lost, that the IRS had taken steps to recover the email messages, but that it was impossible. The IRS Inspector General's office said, however, that they found back-up computer tapes, and would attempt to reconstitute the emails from the back-up tapes. Committee Investigators, however, said that when they later went to obtain the backup tapes from the IRS, the IRS employees in the back-up tape unit said that no one from IRS headquarters had ever asked for them.\n\nHard drive crash and back-up tape erasure of Lerner's emails\n\nTestifying in June 2015, the IRS Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus said that 424 back-up tapes, most likely to have contained the missing emails, were erased in March 2014—a month after the IRS said it realized it was missing some of Lerner's emails because of a hard-drive crash, and although the emails were then under subpoena from the Oversight Committee. He stated, however, that their investigation \"did not uncover evidence that the erasure was done ... to destroy evidence or conceal information from Congress,\" and noted that there was a \"remote possibility\" that additional emails might still be found. He said that officials were examining the possibility, however, of criminal activity.\n\nTestifying in June 2015, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Russell George and his deputy, Timothy Camus, told the Oversight Committee an investigation by them had been able to recover more than 1,000 emails that the IRS did not turn over to Congress. Their investigation could not determine why Lerner's computer crashed, but that, \"Prior to our investigation, and our efforts to recover Ms. Lerner's missing e-mails, the IRS did not search for, review or examine the two separate sources of backup tapes, the server hard drives, or the loaner laptops that ultimately produced new, previously undisclosed e-mails.\"\n\nIn a statement released June 25, 2015, the IRS said it has \"fully cooperated with the investigation,\" but acknowledged the backup tapes should not have been erased. \"The IRS recognizes there was a clear breakdown of communication in one part of the organization regarding the need to preserve and retain the back-up tapes and information,\" the statement said, noting that an internal review found the erasure wasn't intentional.\n\nEmail account under the name \"Toby Miles\"\nOn August 23, 2015, the IRS told a federal court that Lerner had a second personal email account that she used to conduct IRS business. The account was set up under the name \"Toby Miles.\" The disclosure occurred in a lawsuit by the Judicial Watch, which is suing to obtain the release of Lerner's emails. According to Eliana Johnson of National Review, a former colleague said that Toby Miles was the name of Lerner's dog.\n\nFBI finds no evidence to support criminal prosecution\n\nThe U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI began an investigation into the IRS controversy in May 2013. In October 2015, the DOJ announced it was closing the investigation and would not seek criminal charges. The determination came after an investigation of almost two years, in which the DOJ and FBI interviewed more than 100 witnesses and reviewed more than a million pages of IRS documents.\n\nIn a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, announcing the case closure, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter J. Kadzik wrote that while \"our investigation uncovered substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment, and institutional inertia...Not a single IRS employee reported any allegation, concern or suspicion that the handling of tax-exempt applications—or any other IRS function—was motivated by political bias, discriminatory intent, or corruption.\" Kadzik wrote \"We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.\" Kadzik stated that the investigation specifically absolved Lerner of criminal liability, and determined that Lerner was in fact the first official to recognize a problem and try and correct it.\n\nReactions to the investigation's conclusions were split along partisan lines. Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that decision not to prosecute ignored \"volumes of evidence in the public record and efforts to obstruct legitimate inquires\", and that \"giving Lois Lerner a free pass only reinforces the idea that government officials are above the law and that there is no consequence for wrongdoing.\" Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, said that \"Over the past five years, Republicans in the House of Representatives have squandered literally tens of millions of dollars going down all kinds of investigative rabbit holes—IRS, Planned Parenthood, Benghazi—with absolutely no evidence of illegal activity. I believe the American people have higher expectations for their elected officials, and they want Congress to start doing its job and focusing on issues that matter instead of these ridiculous, partisan, taxpayer-funded attacks.\" House Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte, the recipient of the DOJ letter, said that DOJ's decision was \"disturbing. The American people should be concerned that this kind of politicization continues to go unchecked by this administration and a Justice Department charged with pursuing wrongdoing\", and 19 members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee led by the committee's Chairman, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), filed a resolution to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.\n\nPersonal life\nLerner is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL).\n\nLerner has stated she is \"not a political person\" but is a registered Democrat and has voted for candidates from both parties.\n\nSee also\n Finding Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress (H.Res. 574; 113th Congress)\n\nReferences\n\n1950 births\nLiving people\nInternal Revenue Service people\nIRS targeting controversy\nNortheastern University alumni\nWestern New England University alumni\nPeople from Bethesda, Maryland\nMaryland Democrats"
] |
[
"Gigi (1958 film)",
"Filming",
"Where did they film?",
"Paris.",
"How was the weather during filming?",
"The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable.",
"Where did they film?",
"California, where several interior scenes were filmed,",
"Did they like filming in California?",
"unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,",
"When were they able to finish the score?",
"By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque.",
"Is there any other interesting information?",
"the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters,",
"Why did Charles Walters do the reshoot?",
"Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense,",
"Did Lerner make any changes to the script?",
"Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother."
] |
C_3e379c0898fb4d9aaae64645ed4926a2_0
|
Was it easy to come up with the title tune for the film?
| 10 |
Was Gigi (1958 film) title tune easy to come up with for the film?
|
Gigi (1958 film)
|
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in unair-conditioned hotel rooms was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honore, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother. By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi." In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, and at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project. The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Epoque. CANNOTANSWER
|
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune.
|
Gigi () is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
At the 31st Academy Awards, the film won all nine of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Minnelli. It held the record for the highest clean sweep of nominations until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all eleven of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004.
In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked it number 35 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions. The film is considered the last great Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical and the final great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed.
Plot
The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, the precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.
Following the "family tradition", Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Alicia (Gigi's great-aunt) to be groomed as a courtesan, which is a more dignified euphemism for a wealthy man's mistress. She learns proper etiquette and charm, but Gigi disdains the trivial love between a man and his mistress. She prefers having fun with Gaston, whom she regards as an older brother.
Like his uncle, Gaston is a known wealthy womanizer in Parisian high society. When his latest mistress has an affair with her ice skating instructor, Gaston publicly humiliates her, resulting in her faux-attempted suicide. Gaston plans to retreat to the country, but his uncle insists he remain in Paris and attend even more parties.
While playing cards with Gaston, Gigi wagers that if he loses, he must take her and her grandmother to the seaside for the weekend. Gaston agrees, loses the bet, and the three travel to Trouville. While Gaston and Gigi have fun together, Honoré and Madame Alvarez unexpectedly reunite and reminisce about their once-passionate affair. As other women at the resort hold perfect poise with an air of boredom or disdain for anything unfamiliar, Gigi pulls Gaston out of his depressive rut with her carefree attitude.
When Gaston goes to Monte Carlo, great-aunt Alicia and Madame Alvarez scheme to turn Gigi into Gaston's mistress. Though initially dubious, Madame Alvarez agrees to Gigi being intensively trained before Gaston's return. Gigi accepts this as a pre-destined evil.
When Gaston returns, he is discomfited when Gigi shows off her new womanly gown. Gaston insults the dress, preferring her juvenile outfits; Gigi mocks his taste in clothes. Offended, Gaston storms out, then quickly realizes his folly and returns to apologize. He offers to take Gigi to tea at the Reservoir, but Madame Alvarez interjects, telling Gaston that an unchaperoned Gigi being seen in public with him could damage her reputation.
Angered, Gaston storms out again. He walks and reflects on Gigi, realizing he has developed a romantic desire for her. Although hesitant due to her young age, Gaston realizes that he loves Gigi. He wishes only to be near her—an unheard-of behavior between a man and his mistress. Despite such conventions, he proposes a generous "business arrangement" to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia for Gigi to become his mistress. The women are overjoyed by his offer, though Gigi is not.
Gigi refuses, telling Gaston she does not seek celebrity status only to eventually be abandoned by him and become another man's mistress. She wants their relationship to remain platonic, but when Gaston suddenly reveals that he loves her, Gigi bursts into tears. She chastises him, saying if he truly loved her, he would never expose her to a mistress's uncertain life. Gaston leaves dejected and is angry at Madame Alvarez, claiming she only emphasized the proposition's sordidness. He then speaks with Honoré, who says that Gigi's family has always been rather odd. Gigi later sends for Gaston and tells him that she would rather be miserable with him than without him, and agrees to the arrangement. When Gaston arrives for their first social outing, he is unexpectedly entranced by the transformed Gigi's elegant beauty.
The couple go to Maxim's restaurant. Gigi performs perfectly as his courtesan, which only upsets Gaston. After presenting her with an expensive diamond bracelet, he grows uneasy with the unrelenting scrutiny being heaped on them. Honoré delivers a crushing blow when he congratulates Gaston on his new courtesan and remarks that Gigi is so delightful that she will likely keep him amused for months. Gaston, too in love with Gigi to subject her to an appalling life of uncertainty and social judgment, brusquely insists they leave. He drags Gigi up the stairs and into her grandmother's apartment. Sobbing hysterically, Gigi asks what she did wrong. Gaston leaves without answering, but realizing the depth of his love, soon returns. He asks Madame Alvarez for Gigi's hand in marriage. Gigi is overjoyed, as is her grandmother.
The final sequence returns to Honoré Lachaille, who proudly points out Gaston and Gigi getting into a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne: elegant, beautiful, and happily married.
Cast
Production
Development
Hollywood producer Arthur Freed first proposed a musicalization of the Colette novella to Alan Jay Lerner during the Philadelphia tryout of My Fair Lady in 1954. When Lerner arrived in Hollywood two years later, Freed was battling the Hays Code to bring his tale of a courtesan-in-training to the screen. Another roadblock to the project was the fact Colette's widower had sold the rights to her novella to Gilbert Miller, who planned to produce a film version of the 1954 stage adaptation by Anita Loos. It cost Freed more than $87,000 to purchase the rights from Miller and Loos.
Lerner's songwriting partner Frederick Loewe had expressed no interest in working in Hollywood, so Lerner agreed to write the screenplay only. He and Freed discussed casting; Lerner favored Audrey Hepburn, who had starred in the Broadway production written by Loos, but Freed preferred
MGM contract star Leslie Caron, who had co-starred in An American in Paris for him. Both agreed Maurice Chevalier would be ideal for aging boulevardier Honoré Lachaille, and Lerner proposed Dirk Bogarde for Gaston. Lerner agreed to write the lyrics if Freed could convince Bogarde and designer Cecil Beaton to join the project. He decided to approach Loewe once again, and when he suggested they compose the score in Paris, Loewe agreed.
In March 1957, the duo began working in Paris. When Chevalier, who already had agreed to appear in the film, first heard "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", he was delighted. When he discussed his waning interest in wine and women in favor of performing for an audience in cabarets, Chevalier inadvertently inspired the creation of another tune for his character, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore". The lyrics for another of his songs, the duet "I Remember It Well", performed with Hermione Gingold as his former love Madame Alvarez, were adapted from words Lerner had written for Love Life, a 1948 collaboration with Kurt Weill. "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight", a solo performed by Gigi, had been written for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady but was removed during the pre-Broadway run. Lerner disliked the melody, but Loewe, Freed, and Minnelli voted to include it in the film.
Casting
Lerner recalls that for the film Gigi, "The casting was so haphazard, I don't know how they ever got it on." He wrote the part of Honoré Lachaille for Chevalier, but the rest of the casting was still undecided. Having second thoughts about Audrey Hepburn, Freed asked Lerner to meet with her in Paris, but she declined the role. The producer then asked him to fly to London to speak to Leslie Caron, who was living there with her husband Peter Hall. Lerner was surprised to discover the star had become anglicized to the point of losing her French accent. She had recently starred in an unsuccessful stage production of Gigi, but when she heard Lerner's interpretation of the story greatly differed from that of the play, she accepted his offer. Her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand, though Caron filmed mainly to her own tracks (a brief clip of Caron's voice is heard in the DVD extras). Dirk Bogarde expressed interest, as well, but ultimately was unable to free himself from his contract with J. Arthur Rank. Recalling Louis Jourdan from his performance in Three Coins in the Fountain, Freed offered him the role of Gaston.
Filming
In late April, Freed and Minnelli and their respective entourages arrived in Paris. The weather had become unseasonably hot, and working in hotel rooms without air-conditioning was uncomfortable. Minnelli began scouting locations while Freed and Lerner discussed the still incomplete script. Lerner had taken liberties with Colette's novella; the character of Honoré, nonexistent in the original book and very minor in the Loos play, was now a major figure. Gigi's mother, originally a significant character, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue delivered off-screen. Lerner also expanded the focus on Gigi's relationship with her grandmother.
A signature scene was filmed on location at Maxim's, the famous Belle Epoque restaurant with its ornate Art Nouveau mirrored walls. Shooting at the restaurant was a logistical nightmare, as the mirrors reflected lighting equipment, the camera, and other undesirable behind-the-scenes artifacts. Minelli and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg worked together to come up with careful camera placements and a low-light visual scheme so that the location could be used without covering up the iconic mirrors. Ruttenberg even managed to cut down on the need for lighting stands and securing lights in corners by attaching lights with suction cups.
By mid-July, the composers had completed most of the score, but still were missing the title tune. Loewe was at the piano while Lerner was indisposed in the bathroom, and when the former began playing a melody the latter liked, he later recalled he jumped up, "[his] trousers still clinging to [his] ankles, and made his way to the living room. 'Play that again,' he said. And that melody ended up being the title song for Gigi."
In September, the cast and crew flew to California, where several interior scenes were filmed, among them the entire scene in Maxim's, which included a musical number by Jourdan. Lerner was unhappy with the look of the scene as it had been shot by Minnelli, so, at considerable expense, the restaurant was recreated on a soundstage and the scene was reshot by director Charles Walters, since Minnelli was overseas working on a new project.
The film title design uses the artwork of Sem's work from the Belle Époque.
Musical numbers
Overture – Played by MGM Studio Orchestra
"Honoré's Soliloquy" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"It's a Bore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and John Abbott
"The Parisians" – Sung by Betty Wand
"The Gossips" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
"She is Not Thinking of Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"The Night They Invented Champagne" – Sung by Betty Wand, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan
"I Remember It Well" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold
"Gaston's Soliloquy" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"Gigi" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
"I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
"Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" – Sung by Betty Wand
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Reprise)" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and MGM Studio Chorus
The principal credited orchestrator was Conrad Salinger with vocal arrangements supervised by Robert Tucker.
Release
Following completion of the film, it was previewed in Santa Barbara. Audience reaction was overwhelmingly favorable, but Lerner and Loewe were dissatisfied with the result. Lerner felt it was twenty minutes too long and most of the action too slow. The changes he proposed would cost an additional $300,000, money Freed was loath to spend. The songwriting team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, then offered $3 million for the print. Impressed with their belief in the film, MGM executives agreed to the changes, which included eleven days of considerable reshooting, putting the project at $400,000 over budget. At a preview in Encino, audience reaction changed from "appreciation to affection", and Lerner felt the film finally was ready for release. It premiered at the Royale Theatre, a legitimate theatrical venue in New York City, on May 15, 1958.
The film entered saturation release in the United States with 450 prints on April 1, 1959.
Reception
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $6.5 million in the US and Canada and $3.2 million elsewhere during its initial theatrical release, resulting in a profit of $1,983,000. It was Freed's last and largest grossing success.
In total, the film grossed $13,208,725 in its initial release and later 1966 re-release.
Critical reception
In the 1959 review for Sight & Sound, David Vaughan calls Gigi "an elegant film" with a "cultivated visual taste [which] is everywhere apparent". He summarizes that "while Gigi does not represent a revival of the MGM musical in its heyday, it is a welcome extension of latter-day musical style in its adult subject-matter and its avoidance of spectacle made vulgar by emphasis on size." He praises Minnelli's talent for "the delicious amorality of the anecdote, but also the honesty and irony of its telling [which] have become foreign to the American cinema." Vaughan points out "Chevalier's practiced but irresistible charm [as] one of the film's greatest assets" as well as "the brilliant high-comedy playing of Isabel Jeans, who as Aunt Alicia consummately portrays the distinction and beauty of a retired aristocrat of the demimonde."
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a musical film that bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves". He added, "But don't think this point of resemblance is made in criticism of the film, for Gigi is a charming entertainment that can stand on its own two legs. It is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story's flavored mood and atmosphere ... Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb."
Abel Green of Variety called the film "100% escapist fare" and predicted it "is destined for a global box-office mop-up". He added, "Alan Jay Lerner's libretto is tailor-made for an inspired casting job for all principals, and Fritz Loewe's tunes (to Lerner's lyrics) already vie with and suggest their memorable My Fair Lady score... Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role... Skillful casting, performance and presentation have endowed realism to the sum total... Director Minnelli's good taste in keeping it in bounds and the general sound judgment of all concerned...distinguishes this Arthur Freed independent production. The Metrocolor rates recognition for its soft pastels under Joseph Ruttenberg's lensing; the Beaton costumes, sets and general production design are vivid physical assets at first sight. The skillful integration of words-and-music with the plot motivation makes this Gigi a very fair lady indeed as a boxoffice entry."
Time Out New York said, "The dominating creative contribution comes from Minnelli and Cecil Beaton ... The combination of these two visual elitists is really too much—it's like a meal consisting of cheesecake, and one quickly longs for something solid and vulgar to weigh things down. No doubt inspired by the finicky, claustrophobic sets and bric-à-brac, the cast tries (with unfortunate success) to be more French than the French, especially Chevalier. The exception is Gingold, who inhabits, as always, a world of her own."
TV Guide rated the film 3½ out of five stars, calling it "Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming... Caron...leads the cast in a contest to see who can be the most French. The winner is Chevalier, in a performance that makes one feel as if you're gagging on pastry... Perhaps if the sweetness of Gigi was contrasted with elements of honest vulgarity, the picture could balance itself out... Ten minutes into the movie, you've resolved the plot and are left to wallow in lovely frou-frou. [The film] makes wonderful use of the usual Parisian landmarks, and benefits from extraordinary period costumes and sets."
Awards and nominations
Gigi won a record-breaking nine Academy Awards (at the 1959 Oscars ceremony); however, this record only lasted for one year, as Ben-Hur broke this record the following year with 11 Oscars. In tribute to Gigis domination of the Oscars, the MGM switchboard answered calls the following day with "M-Gigi-M". Gigi, eventually along with 1987's The Last Emperor, held the record as the film(s) with the most Academy Award wins in every category in which it was nominated, until 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King broke the record at the 2004 Oscars ceremony with 11 Oscar nominations and 11 Oscar wins.
American Film Institute lists:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions -#35
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
Thank Heaven for Little Girls -#56
Digital restoration
In about 2008, the film was digitally restored by Prasad Studios, which removed dirt, tears, scratches, and other defects frame by frame.
Popular culture
Jazz trumpeter, bandleader and arranger Shorty Rogers released an album of Lerner and Loewe's music, Gigi in Jazz, in 1958.
The album cover appears on the cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) album, designed by Storm Thorgerson. For the US/Canada and Australian releases the cover was airbrushed out because of fears of copyright infringement. The artwork was restored in the later CD releases in all territories.
Edith Bouvier Beale (best known as "Little Edie") mentioned several times in the Maysles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens that Gigi was "absolutely marvelous".
In the book series, The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, the character Gigi gets her nickname from her love of the musical
See also
List of American films of 1958
References
Bibliography
External links
Gigi essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 547-579
1958 films
1958 musical comedy films
1958 romantic comedy films
1950s romantic musical films
American films
American musical comedy films
American romantic comedy films
American romantic musical films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Films adapted into plays
Films based on French novels
Films based on romance novels
Films based on works by Colette
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Arthur Freed
Films scored by André Previn
Films scored by Frederick Loewe
Films set in Paris
Films set in the 1900s
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
United States National Film Registry films
CinemaScope films
| true |
[
"Easy Come, Easy Go is a 1967 American musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley. Hal Wallis produced the film for Paramount Pictures, and it was Wallis' final production with Presley. The film co-starred Dodie Marshall, Pat Harrington, Jr., Pat Priest, Elsa Lanchester, and Frank McHugh. (It was McHugh's last feature film.) The movie reached #50 on the Variety magazine national box office list in 1967.\n\nEasy Come, Easy Go, Presley's twenty-third film, was released on March 22, two weeks before his twenty-fourth, Double Trouble, which was released on April 5. However, Double Trouble was filmed before Easy Come, Easy Go.\n\nPlot\nUnited States Navy officer Lieutenant Junior Grade (j.g.) Ted Jackson (Elvis Presley) is a former U.S. Navy frogman who divides his time between twin careers as a deep sea diver and nightclub singer. Ted discovers what he believes could be a fortune in Spanish gold aboard a sunken ship and sets out to rescue it with the help of go-go dancing yoga expert Jo Symington (Dodie Marshall) and friend Judd Whitman (Pat Harrington, Jr.). Gil Carey (Skip Ward), however, is also after the treasure and uses his girlfriend Dina Bishop (Pat Priest) to foil Ted's plans.\n\nPresley sings six songs in the movie: the title song, \"I'll Take Love\", \"Sing You Children\", \"You Gotta Stop\", \"Yoga Is as Yoga Does\" in a duet with Elsa Lanchester, and \"The Love Machine\". The film would be the first starring Presley that had a ballad-free soundtrack since his 1956 film debut, Love Me Tender. Despite this, only 30,000 copies were sold, making it the worst selling record that Elvis ever released for RCA Victor.\n\nCast\n Elvis Presley as Ted Jackson\n Dodie Marshall as Jo Symington\n Pat Priest as Dina Bishop\n Pat Harrington, Jr. as Judd Whitman\n Skip Ward as Gil Carey\n Sandy Kenyon as Schwartz\n Frank McHugh as Captain Jack\n Ed Griffith as Cooper \n Read Morgan as Ensign Tompkins\n Mickey Elley as Ensign Whitehead \n Elaine Beckett as Vicki \n Shari Nims as Mary \n Diki Lerner as Zoltan\n Robert Isenberg as Artist\n Elsa Lanchester as Madame Neherina\nMickey Rooney as drunk man\n\nProduction\nParamount originally intended to make a movie called Easy Come Easy Go starring Jan and Dean with director Barry Shear but it was cancelled when the stars and several crew were injured in a train crash. The studio decided to use the same title, but a completely different plot.\n\nPrincipal photography began on October 3, 1966 and finished about a month later.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nReception\nHoward Thompson of The New York Times called the film \"a tired little clinker that must have been shot during lunch hour\" and also criticized it for only including \"three measly songs. A pittance!\" Variety was more positive, writing: \"Good balance of script and songs, plus generally amusing performances by a competent, well-directed cast, add up to diverting entertainment.\" Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four and wrote that it was \"obviously produced with a minimum of care and with the sole purpose of contriving a plot, any plot, to fill in between when Elvis sings.\" Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was \"aptly summed up in its title: easy to take, easy to forget. Always pleasant, occasionally just plain hokey, it sticks to the familiar Presley formula of songs, pretty girls and a slight plot.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\nDVD Reviews\nReview of the movie collection \"Lights! Camera! Elvis! Collection (King Creole, Blue Hawaii, G.I. Blues, Fun in Acapulco, Roustabout, Girls! Girls! Girls!, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, Easy Come, Easy Go) by Paul Mavis at DVD Talk, August 6, 2007.\nReview by Jeff Rosado at digitallyOBSESSED!, March 4, 2003.\n\n1967 films\n1967 musical films\nEnglish-language films\nFilms directed by John Rich\nFilms produced by Hal B. Wallis\nParamount Pictures films\nTreasure hunt films\nFilms featuring underwater diving",
"\"The High and the Mighty\" is a song by Ned Washington and Dimitri Tiomkin from the film of the same name.\n\nAt the start of the film's production late in 1953, veteran film composer and musician Dimitri Tiomkin was commissioned to write the film's score. The studio also urged Tiomkin to come up with a theme song for the film, to be released to radio and as a vinyl record. Tiomkin formed the basic melody to the song and enlisted songwriter Ned Washington to write the song's lyrics. What resulted was a gentle ballad. Warner Bros. presented the song to Les Baxter and his orchestra, who recorded and released the song to coincide with the release of the film. When released in 1954, \"The High and the Mighty\" peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Pop chart.\n\nBoth the film score and the song were nominated for Academy Awards in 1955. The song, which ultimately did not win an award, was sung by Johnny Desmond, accompanied by Muzzy Marcellino at the awards show. Dimitri Tiomkin's score won the Academy Award that year.\n\nToward the end of the film, after John Wayne's character convinced the captain to try to make it to San Francisco rather than ditch, the captain said \"Whistle me a tune, Dan. I like music when I work.\" Dan (John Wayne) whistled a bit of \"(I'm a) Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech\" (Georgia Tech's famous and catchy fight song). Audiences at the time no doubt immediately recognized it and understood it was a sign of success, as Georgia Tech was in its glory years in football under Bobby Dodd, during which it won six bowl games in six years and was named National Champion by one organization in 1952.\n\nA second and much rarer version of the title song lyrics also exists. In contrast to the romantic motif of the popular hit tune, the secondary version is instead a paean to the crews who guide the airliners through the night skies towards distant cities, and concludes with an allusion to the \"high and mighty\" as the Deity.\n\nAn instrumental version was also recorded in 1954 by the conductor and arranger LeRoy Holmes, reaching number 9 on the Billboard chart. It became Holmes' biggest hit, and his most recognizable. The song is known for its distinctive whistling, which accompanies the music, and which was provided by Fred Lowery (the whistling within the film itself was dubbed by Muzzy Marcellino). Yet another hit version was recorded by Victor Young and his orchestra in 1954, peaking at number 6 on the Billboard chart, and Harry James recorded a version in 1955 on his album, Jukebox Jamboree (Columbia CL 615). Another version, complete with footsteps walking, and whistling, was recorded in the UK by Jimmy Young, with Bob Sharples & His Orchestra, on the Decca label.\n\nAnother vocal version with the complete Ned Washington lyrics has been recorded by Billy Eckstine in his album, Now Singing In 12 Great Movies, from the early 1960s. An instrumental version by George Greeley was recorded on his 1959 Warner Bros. album, Greatest Motion Picture Piano Concertos. The Shadows also recorded an instrumental version in 1964 for their album, Dance with The Shadows.\n\nThe tune is whistled in the fadeout of the Simon & Garfunkel song \"Punky's Dilemma\", from their 1968 album Bookends. Toward the end of the 1980 film Seems Like Old Times, Chevy Chase's character can be heard whistling the tune as he walks away from the camera.\n\nReferences\n\n1954 songs\nSongs with music by Dimitri Tiomkin\nSongs with lyrics by Ned Washington\nSongs written for films"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary"
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
When did he start his career?
| 1 |
When did Joe Tinker start his career?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"Jonas Deumeland (born 9 February 1988) is a German footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Start.\n\nClub career\nDeumeland started his career with VfL Wolfsburg, but did not become a regular until his three seasons in Belgian outfit K.A.S. Eupen.\n\nFollowing retirement he made a comeback with SpVgg Greuther Fürth II in 2016–17. In 2018 he was signed by Norwegian club IK Start who was left with only one goalkeeper when first-choice Håkon Opdal was injured. In Deumeland's second match, he too sustained an injury.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\nReferences\n\n1988 births\nLiving people\nGerman footballers\nGerman expatriate footballers\nExpatriate footballers in Belgium\nGerman expatriate sportspeople in Belgium\nExpatriate footballers in Norway\nGerman expatriate sportspeople in Norway\nAssociation football goalkeepers\nRot-Weiß Oberhausen players\nVfL Wolfsburg II players\nK.A.S. Eupen players\nSpVgg Greuther Fürth II players\nIK Start players\nRegionalliga players\nBelgian First Division B players\nEliteserien players\nNorwegian First Division players",
"Kenny Hendrick (born September 10, 1969) is an American stock car racing driver. He is a former competitor in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and Craftsman Truck Series. He is the twin brother of former USAC midget car driver Kara Hendrick, who lost her life in a racing accident in October 1991.\n\nBusch Series\nHendrick made his Busch Series debut in 2003, when he ran a hodgepodge of entries. He made his debut at Gateway, where he started 30th for the Stanton Barrett Racing operation. He ran a solid race and came home 21st. He did a start and park race for GIC-Mixon Motorsports at Nazareth, before doing another start and park at Dover for Rick Allen. Hendrick would return then to the Stanton Barrett Racing for two more 2003 races. He was 35th at Nashville and 27th at Kentucky.\n\nHendrick was tapped to drive the first Keller Racing vehicles in 2004, a team that ran a ten-race schedule. The new team struggled. Hendrick only qualified for six races and his best finish was an 18th at Kentucky. The Kentucky race was the only one that Hendrick finished. He was released, and he would only compete in one more series race. It, too, came in 2004, when he drove the Ware Racing Enterprises Dodge to a 42nd-place finish in the fall Dover race.\n\nHe returned in 2008 at Mexico driving a second Stanton Barrett Motorsports car in place of Stan Barrett who was originally meant to race for the team. He qualified and finished 38th after pulling in with handling issues. He then drove at Richmond replacing the injured Larry Gunselman at MSRP Motorsports qualifying 40th and finishing 43rd after parking the car on lap 6. He made a second start for Stanton Barrett at Darlington starting 34th and finishing 36th after parking on lap 30.\n\nIn 2009, Hendrick drove for Smith-Ganassi Racing, a team that had bought the assets of the shut-down No. 40 team.\n\nCraftsman Truck Series\nHendrick ran four Craftsman Truck Series races in 1996 to start his career off. He started his career with a top-10 start: a 9th in his debut at Phoenix. He finished 28th in that race. His best run of the year was a modest 23rd-place finish at Las Vegas.\n\nFour more races were in store for Hendrick. He had one top-20 finish. That was a 19th at Texas, racing for Rob Rizzo. He had started the year off with the team, but after finishes of 29th and 24th, they let him go.\n\nHendrick would not race in this series until 2003, when he did a start and park effort in a second Billy Ballew Motorsports No. 9 entry. Because of the nature of the effort, Hendrick did not complete any of the dozen starts he did and his best finish was a 31st at IRP, where he also recorded his second career top-10 start of 10th.\n\nHendrick returned to the Trucks when he ran at Kansas Speedway in the No. 16 Xpress Motorsports truck on April 28, 2007.\n\nMotorsports career results\n\nSCCA National Championship Runoffs\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\nNextel Cup Series\n\nBusch Series\n\nCraftsman Truck Series\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nLiving people\n1969 births\nPeople from Chino, California\nRacing drivers from California\nNASCAR drivers\nTrans-Am Series drivers\nSCCA National Championship Runoffs winners"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912."
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?
| 2 |
Other than playing for the Chicago Cubs, was Joe Tinker known for anything else during 1902 to 1912 as a shortstop?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"Milton Joseph Bolling (August 9, 1930 – January 19, 2013) was a shortstop in Major League Baseball who played from 1952 through 1958 for the Boston Red Sox (1952–1957), Washington Senators (1957) and Detroit Tigers (1958). Bolling batted and threw right-handed. He was the older brother of Frank Bolling.\n\nIn a seven-season career, Bolling was a .241 hitter with 19 home runs and 94 runs batted in (RBIs) in 400 games played.\n\nEarly career\nAt the age of 17, Bolling was signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent. He began his professional career in Minor League Baseball for the Class B Piedmont League Roanoke Red Sox. As a shortstop, he was not brought in for his bat, but as a defensive specialist. In the 1948 season, Bolling had 54 hits in 293 at bats to compile a .184 batting average in 85 games. 1949 saw Bolling as Roanoke's starting shortstop for the majority of the season. He had 12 home runs and 28 doubles to go with a .230 batting average in 139 games. His quality play earned him a spot at shortstop on the Piedmont League All-Star Team.\n\nIn 1950 Bolling was advanced to the Class A Scranton Miners of the Eastern League. Along with his fielding prowess, his batting was starting to get hot as well, batting .276 for the season with 134 hits in 486 at bats. For a short period, Bolling was promoted to the AA Birmingham Barons. He failed to make a good impression, going just 2 for 27 in 10 games to compile a .074 average. 1951 was familiar territory for Bolling as he began his second season with the Scranton Red Sox. He only played in 71 games, but still managed to hit a modest .253 with 56 hits and 16 doubles. 1952 would prove to be a big year for Bolling. He was promoted once again to the Birmingham Barons, but this time he held his own by hitting a clean .250 with 83 hits in 94 games.\n\nBoston Red Sox\nIn September 1952, the struggling Boston Red Sox brought up 11 minor leaguers all at once, including Bolling. On September 10, Bolling made his Major League debut by replacing Johnny Lipon at shortstop for Boston. Bolling walked in his first at bat in the seventh inning against Bill Wight of the Detroit Tigers. In the top of the ninth, Bolling slugged his first major league hit. The Red Sox would go on to lose the game 6 to 2. For the rest of September, Bolling put up typical numbers for a shortstop of the era. He hit .222 with a lone home run on September 16 and three runs batted in for only 36 at bats.\n\n1953 was the first full Major League season for Bolling. He competed with veteran Lipon for the starting role at shortstop which was eventually won by Bolling when the Red Sox sold Lipon to the St Louis Browns on September 8. On April 16, opening day for the Red Sox against the Philadelphia Athletics, Milt started at shortstop and got off to a red-hot start, going 4 for 5 with a double and one run batted in en route to an 11–6 victory. Milt finished April with a strong .293 average, but struggled in May and June with monthly batting averages of .215 and .229. In July, Bolling's bat got white hot as he hit .380 in 71 at bats. He eventually tapered off but put up a respectable .263 batting average with five home runs and 28 RBIs in 109 games as the Sox shortstop. He was sixth in the American League for sacrifice hits with 13.\n\n1954 was more of the same for Bolling, except this time he led the American League in errors committed with 33. However, he was fourth with assists at shortstop, and first with his range factor. Milt put down 13 more sacrifice hits, good enough for fourth in the league. Bolling was third in doubles among all AL shortstops with 20. His hitting got off to a slow start and he never truly recovered, batting just .249 with six home runs and 36 RBIs.\n\nOn March 23, 1955, Milt had a career-threatening injury when he broke his left elbow in a Spring training game against the St. Louis Cardinals after he had already won the starting role at shortstop for the season. He was expected to return after six weeks, but ended up playing in only six games for the entire season.\n\nBy the time Bolling got a clean bill of health, he had lost his starting job to Don Buddin for the 1956 season. Milt was a rarely used pinch hitter until he started seeing some starts at the tail end of the season in August and September. He could only muster a .212 batting average to go with 3 home runs and 8 RBI in just 45 games.\n\nWashington Senators\nAfter playing just one game into the season for the Red Sox off the bench, on April 29, 1957, the Red Sox traded Bolling along with Russ Kemmerer and Faye Throneberry to the Washington Senators for Bob Chakales and Dean Stone. Milt was immediately put to work with the Senators, starting at shortstop occasionally in May and June before becoming their everyday starter from July through the end of the season. Bolling split time between second base and shortstop, committing 11 errors. His bat was cold once again, hitting .227 with four home runs and 19 RBIs in 91 games.\n\nDetroit Tigers and retirement\nOn February 25, 1958, the Senators traded Bolling to the Cleveland Indians for Pete Mesa. It didn't work out, however, as a month later the Indians swapped him with the Detroit Tigers for Pete Wojey and $20,000. He became teammates with his brother, Frank Bolling, a five-year veteran for the Tigers as their starting second baseman. Despite the connection to his brother, Milt struggled to find playing time throughout the season. He started several games in April before being sidelined for a few days with a virus attack, and afterward playing time was scarce. Milt played his final Major League game on July 28, ending his season with a .194 average in just 31 at bats.\n\nAfter his playing days, Bolling spent more than 30 years with the Red Sox, first as an executive assistant to owner Tom Yawkey, and later as an area scout based in Alabama.\n\nPersonal life and death\nBolling attended Spring Hill College. In late 2012, he underwent open-heart surgery. His health had declined since the surgery. He died on January 19, 2013.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1930 births\n2013 deaths\nBaseball players from Mississippi\nBirmingham Barons players\nBoston Red Sox players\nBoston Red Sox scouts\nCharleston Senators players\nDetroit Tigers players\nMajor League Baseball shortstops\nPeople from Harrison County, Mississippi\nRoanoke Red Sox players\nScranton Miners players\nScranton Red Sox players\nSpring Hill College alumni\nWashington Senators (1901–1960) players",
"John Joseph McDonald (born September 24, 1974) is an American former professional baseball infielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox, and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim between 1999 and 2014. Primarily a shortstop, he was also a utility infielder, with the ability to also play second base, third base and left field. He also appeared in one extra inning game in 2013 as an emergency pitcher. Known for his defensive ability, he posted a career fielding percentage of .974 in over 6,450 innings.\n\nHigh school and college\nMcDonald graduated from East Lyme High School in East Lyme, Connecticut. When he was not drafted by any major league baseball team in his initial draft year, he attended University of Connecticut Avery Point Campus, where he was NJCAA Division II All-American in 1994 as shortstop. He went on to play at Providence College in 1995 and 1996 on a partial scholarship, earning All-New England honors as a member of one of the last baseball teams before the college discontinued its baseball program. In 1995, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Bourne Braves of the Cape Cod Baseball League. After he was drafted in 1996, he left Providence to pursue a career in professional baseball. At that time he was still several courses short of completing a degree; he earned his degree in 2010.\n\nProfessional career\n\nMinor league career\nMcDonald was drafted in the 12th round of the 1996 Major League Baseball draft (363rd overall) by the Cleveland Indians, and entered the Indians' minor league system. In 1996, he played with the Watertown Indians of the Single A New York–Pennsylvania League, then moved to the Kinston Indians of the Single A Carolina League in 1997. In 1998, he was invited to the Indians' spring training camp, and moved up to the Akron Aeros of the Double A Eastern League, where his defensive plays at shortstop made him a popular player with the fans. McDonald split 1999 between Akron and the Buffalo Bisons of the Triple A International League and was also called up to the major leagues for a short stint. McDonald also appeared in a number of games for the Indians in 2000 and 2001, spending the remainder of each season in Buffalo.\n\nCleveland Indians (1999–2004)\nMcDonald made his major league debut for Cleveland on July 4, 1999, and appeared in 18 games for the Indians that season. He appeared in nine games for the Indians in 2000, another 17 games in 2001, and in 2002, he made his move to the Indians' roster, appearing in 93 games. The Indians, taking advantage of McDonald's popularity in Akron, used McDonald in promotions there to draw Aeros fans to Cleveland.\n\nAfter three full seasons with the Indians, McDonald was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays on December 2, 2004, in exchange for Tom Mastny. In his six full and partial seasons with Cleveland, McDonald batted .231, with a fielding average of .971.\n\nToronto Blue Jays/Detroit Tigers (2005)\nDuring the first part of the 2005 season with the Blue Jays, McDonald was primarily a backup for Russ Adams at shortstop, and recorded a .290 batting average with 12 RBI in 37 games.\n\nHe was traded to the Detroit Tigers on July 22 for future considerations. During the remainder of the season with Detroit, McDonald hit .260 with 4 RBI and a .308 on-base percentage in 31 games.\n\nToronto Blue Jays (2006–2011)\nOn November 10, 2005, the Tigers sent him back to the Toronto Blue Jays for cash considerations, in effect completing the earlier trade by trading John McDonald for himself. Only three other players have been traded for themselves in this manner (Harry Chiti, Dickie Noles, and Brad Gulden). McDonald is the only one of the four who played in the major leagues at every step of the trade sequence: for the team that initially traded him away, for the team that obtained him in the trade for a player to be named later (PTBNL), and once again for the initial team after being traded back as the PTBNL. The other players were either sent to the minors or were granted free agency immediately after being traded back as the PTBNL.\n\nDuring the 2006 season, McDonald was the starting shortstop for the Toronto Blue Jays. On July 25, 2006, he hit his first career grand slam in a game against the Seattle Mariners and also drove in a career high of five runs. Although McDonald showed good defensive skills, his offensive hitting skills were weak—he had a .223 batting average, a .271 slugging percentage and a .308 on-base percentage during the 2006 season.\n\nIn an attempt to inject some stronger hitting into the shortstop position, the Blue Jays obtained Royce Clayton in the off-season, and McDonald and Clayton started the 2007 season sharing shortstop duties. McDonald also started some games at third base as Troy Glaus's backup. Later in the season, after demonstrating his strong defensive abilities, McDonald replaced Clayton as the everyday starting shortstop, and Clayton was subsequently released. McDonald took the opportunity as starting shortstop to make some exceptional defensive plays (often in conjunction with fellow infielders Aaron Hill and Lyle Overbay). He was considered by some baseball writers to be a Gold Glove contender after leading AL shortstops with a .986 in fielding percentage. (Orlando Cabrera was subsequently chosen.) Due in large part to his defensive abilities, McDonald received a two-year contract extension from the Blue Jays reportedly worth $3.8 million in September 2007.\n\nIn a poll of viewers on Rogers Sportsnet, McDonald was voted the most popular Blue Jay, narrowly edging out Cy Young-winning pitcher Roy Halladay.\n\nDespite his contract extension, McDonald again started another season, 2008 as the back-up shortstop due to the Blue Jays' off-season acquisition of all-star shortstop David Eckstein. However, when Eckstein was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks on August 31, McDonald once again became the starting shortstop.\n\nAt the start of the 2009 season, McDonald again found himself the back-up shortstop, this time behind newly acquired Marco Scutaro. However, McDonald once again became the starting shortstop when Scutaro was injured late in the season.\n\nMcDonald had a batting average of .258 in 2009. His slugging percentage of .271, on-base percentage of .384 and four home runs were career highs.\n\nOn November 25, 2009, the Blue Jays re-signed McDonald to a two-year, $3 million contract.\n\nIn the 2010 season, McDonald again began as the back-up shortstop, this time behind Yunel Escobar. McDonald missed much of the month of June to spend time with his ailing father, who would eventually pass away. McDonald returned to the lineup on June 20, Father's Day, hitting a home run in his only at-bat, afterward dedicating it to his father. McDonald hit a career-high six home runs in 2010, passing his previous season high of four.\n\nMcDonald started the 2011 season as a non-starting utility bench player, able to enter the game as a pinch runner, or as a replacement infielder or left fielder. He also occasionally started as an infielder when the manager wanted to give the regular starting player a day off. (For example, on July 1, 2011 he started at second base in order to give Aaron Hill a day off, but when shortstop Yunel Escobar left the game in the first inning after being hit by a pitch, McDonald moved to shortstop.)\n\nOn April 22, 2011, McDonald came into a game against the Tampa Bay Rays to replace an injured Jayson Nix, and hit his first career walk-off home run, a two-run homer in the 11th inning.\n\nOn May 28, 2011, McDonald was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained right groin. Mike McCoy was called up to take his place. McDonald was activated from the DL on June 17, 2011.\n\nNicknames as a Blue Jay\nWhile in Toronto, McDonald was popularly known in the media and by Blue Jays fans as \"Johnny Mac\". Due to some of his outstanding defensive plays, local media also dubbed him \"Magic Man\" (the title of a popular 1976 hit song by Heart), and \"The Prime Minister of Defence\" (a word play on the similarly named first prime minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald).\n\nArizona Diamondbacks (2011–2012)\nOn August 23, 2011, McDonald, was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks, along with teammate Aaron Hill, for Kelly Johnson.\nDuring his time in Arizona, McDonald served as the Diamondbacks' primary shortstop following the trade in 2011 but shared his duties with Willie Bloomquist and Stephen Drew in 2012.\n\nOn November 2, 2011, the Diamondbacks re-signed McDonald to a two-year, $3 million contract.\n\nPittsburgh Pirates (2013)\nOn March 20, 2013, McDonald was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. McDonald was placed on the disabled list on May 15 with a low back strain. On May 27, McDonald started a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians.\n\nReturn to Cleveland Indians (2013)\nOn June 10, 2013, McDonald was traded to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later or cash considerations. On June 26, McDonald was designated for assignment when Asdrúbal Cabrera was activated from the disabled list. McDonald was used as a defensive replacement during his short return to Cleveland, and was hitless in seven at-bats.\n\nPhiladelphia Phillies (2013)\nMcDonald was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies on June 27, 2013, in exchange for cash considerations or a player to be named later. On August 24, McDonald appeared as a pitcher for the first time in his career, and struck out Tuffy Gosewisch in his of an inning.\n\nBoston Red Sox (2013)\nOn August 31, 2013, McDonald was traded to Boston Red Sox in exchange for minor league pitcher Nefi Ogando. As McDonald was acquired prior to September 1, he was eligible to play in the postseason. He appeared in six games for the Red Sox in the regular season, hitting .250 in eight at-bats. McDonald was not included on the postseason roster, but following the Red Sox' 2013 World Series victory, was awarded a World Series ring.\n\nLos Angeles Angels (2014)\nOn January 16, 2014, McDonald signed a minor league contract with the Los Angeles Angels, with an invitation to attend their spring training camp to try out for a utility infielder position. He was placed on the active roster for the start of the regular season.\n\nRetirement\nOn January 7, 2015, McDonald announced his retirement from professional baseball.\n\nPersonal life\nMcDonald met his wife-to-be, Maura, in a freshman English class at Providence College in 1995. They have two children, Jacqueline and Anthony.\n\nWhen McDonald left Providence College in 1996, he was only six courses shy of earning his degree. Encouraged by his wife to complete his studies while still playing baseball, he enrolled in Providence College School of Continuing Education in 2006, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies in 2010. He was able to accept his degree from the college president on July 13, 2010, during the annual break for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1974 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from New London, Connecticut\nBaseball players from Connecticut\nAmerican expatriate baseball players in Canada\nMajor League Baseball shortstops\nMajor League Baseball infielders\nCleveland Indians players\nToronto Blue Jays players\nDetroit Tigers players\nArizona Diamondbacks players\nPittsburgh Pirates players\nPhiladelphia Phillies players\nBoston Red Sox players\nLos Angeles Angels players\nProvidence Friars baseball players\nMahoning Valley Scrappers players\nKinston Indians players\nAkron Aeros players\nBuffalo Bisons (minor league) players\nIndianapolis Indians players\nWatertown Indians players\nLake County Captains players\nDunedin Blue Jays players\nArizona League Diamondbacks players\nBourne Braves players"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910."
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
So he was a good runner, but could he bat?
| 3 |
So Joe Tinker was a good runner, but could he bat?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"The Bat No. 2 was a British motorcycle made in 1913 by Bat Motor Manufacturing Co. Ltd in Penge, Surrey. Offered with a choice of Bat's own two-speed gearbox or with a conventional (for the time) belt drive, sales were good but production ended on the outbreak of the First World War one year later.\n\nDevelopment\nThe Bat Motor Manufacturing Co. Ltd produced motorcycles between 1902 and 1926. The 'Bat' name is often wrongly written as BAT as people thought it came from the way the motorcycles were nicknamed Best After Tests, but it actually came from the founder, Samuel Robert Batson. Despite some competition success, Batson decided to concentrate on office equipment and sold the company to Theodore Tessier in 1904. Tessier was innovative and developed one of the first motorcycle suspension systems, with a leading link front fork. Tessler's son continued riding Bat motorcycles in competition and it was from this that the nickname was developed into a marketing slogan. The Bat No. 2 used outdated engineering even for its time, however, with no front brake. The No. 2 model was available either with Bat's own two-speed countershaft gearbox and an unusual linked spring system for the saddle and footboards, or an alternative specification (without the springs ) that had a belt drive to an Armstrong three-speed rear hub. \n\nAlthough it was also known as the Light Roadster the engine was a well-proven 770cc V-twin side-valve four-stroke from Tottenham engine specialists JAP; Bat also offered 650cc, 964cc and 980cc options. The Bat No 2 also featured a specially sprung saddle to improve rider comfort on the poor roads of the time. To raise awareness of the motorcycles, Tessier began serious competitive racing and achieved over 200 wins, setting numerous speed records. Bat also managed seventh place in the 1913 Senior TT. Production ended on the outbreak of the First World War. when the factory switched to producing munitions. Bat sold all their remaining stock of Bat No. 2 motorcycles to the Russian military but was never paid, so discontinued the No. 2 after the war.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nList of motorcycles of the 1910s\n\nMotorcycles of the United Kingdom\nMotorcycles introduced in the 1910s",
"The Baynes Bat (or sometimes Slingsby-Baynes Bat) was an experimental glider of the Second World War, designed by L. E. Baynes. It was used to test the tailless design that he had suggested as a means to convert tanks into temporary gliders so they could be flown into battle.\n\nDesign and development\nIn the late 1930s, armies were looking for a way to airlift heavy military units. There were then no cargo aircraft big enough to lift a tank, and even if such a large aircraft had been created it would have needed many special facilities. A solution which was explored during the Second World War was to tow tanks as gliders, and for this wings had to be added. Most designs were based on straight wings with extended empennage and stabilizers. The design of L.E. Baynes AFRAeS in 1941 was for a 100 ft wingspan \"Carrier Wing Glider\" consisting chiefly of a swept wing with vertical stabilizers on the wingtips.\n\nA 1/3 scale prototype was built entirely of wood in 1943 by Slingsby Sailplanes at Kirkbymoorside, and the Baynes Bat made its first flight in July 1943 at the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment at RAF Sherburn-in-Elmet, Yorkshire. Most of the test flights were piloted by Flight Lieutenant Robert Kronfeld.\n\nTests were successful, but the project was abandoned because a suitable tank was not then available and a decision had been made to develop gliders which could carry heavy equipment within their fuselages. The strategists were not convinced of the practicality of retrieving large numbers of Baynes Bats from the field, but in wartime this was not a critical factor.\n\nThe one Bat which had been built was the first tailless monoplane with flaps to be available for research and it was flown extensively by the Royal Aircraft Establishment to test the stability and control of tailless aircraft. The Bat was sold as surplus in October 1946 and entered on the British Gliding Association register in November 1947. The Bat was last seen in 1958, lying behind a hangar at Croydon Airport.\n\nOperators\n\nAirborne Forces Experimental Establishment\nRoyal Aircraft Establishment\n\nSpecifications\n\nSee also\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n The Baynes Bat\n\n1940s British experimental aircraft\nGlider aircraft\nSlingsby aircraft\nCancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom\nFlying wings\nAircraft first flown in 1943"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.",
"So he was a good runner, but could he bat?",
"Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,"
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
Did he ever play in the World Series?
| 4 |
Did Joe Tinker ever play in the World Series?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"Bill Smith (March 14, 1934 – February 28, 1996) was a professional poker player who won the 1985 World Series of Poker Main Event.\n\nPoker career\nSmith was a staple at the World Series of Poker during the 1980s. He was involved in three final tables of the Main Event. At the 1981 and 1986 WSOP Smith placed fifth, but at the 1985 World Series of Poker he won the bracelet, and $700,000. His total tournament winnings exceeded $1,050,000. His three cashes at the WSOP accounted for $788,800 of his lifetime winnings.\n\nSmith would often play professional poker tournaments drunk. By all accounts, he was an alcoholic.\n\nAccording to fellow poker player T. J. Cloutier, Smith did not play well when he was sober or totally drunk. “Bill was the tightest player you'd ever played in your life when he was sober. And when he was halfway drunk, he was the best player I'd ever played with. No one could read opponents’ hands better than half- drunk Smith. But when he got past that halfway mark, he was the worst player I'd ever played with.” \n\nThe year Smith won the Main Event, he entered the final day's play sober and just sat there while he warmed up. After he started drinking, he accumulated a huge pile of chips by well-timed aggressive play. He had so many chips once he was totally drunk that good luck led him to victory.\n\nWorld Series of Poker Bracelets\n\nDeath\nSmith died in 1996.\n\nReferences\n\n1996 deaths\nAmerican poker players\nWorld Series of Poker bracelet winners\nWorld Series of Poker Main Event winners\nSuper Bowl of Poker event winners\n1934 births",
"Tyrone Edward Kane (born 8 July 1994) is an Irish cricketer who plays for the Ireland national cricket team. He was one of the eleven cricketers to play in Ireland's first ever Test match, against Pakistan, in May 2018. In December 2018, he was one of nineteen players to be awarded a central contract by Cricket Ireland for the 2019 season. In January 2020, he was one of nineteen players to be awarded a central contract from Cricket Ireland, the first year in which all contracts were awarded on a full-time basis.\n\nDomestic and T20 career\nHe made his List A debut for Leinster Lightning in the 2017 Inter-Provincial Cup on 1 May 2017. He made his first-class debut for Leinster Lightning in the 2017 Inter-Provincial Championship on 30 August 2017.\n\nIn July 2019, he was selected to play for the Dublin Chiefs in the inaugural edition of the Euro T20 Slam cricket tournament. However, the following month the tournament was cancelled.\n\nInternational career\nHe made his Twenty20 International (T20I) debut against Scotland on 18 June 2015. In June 2016, he was named in Ireland's One Day International (ODI) squad for their series against Afghanistan, that took place the following month, but he did not play.\n\nIn May 2018, he was named in a fourteen-man squad for Ireland's first ever Test match, which was played against Pakistan later the same month. He made his Test debut for Ireland, against Pakistan, on 11 May 2018 and was dismissed for a duck.\n\nIn May 2019, he was named in Ireland's ODI squad for their series against Afghanistan, but he did not play. The following month, he was named in the Ireland Wolves squad for their home series against the Scotland A cricket team. On 10 July 2020, Kane was named in Ireland's 21-man squad to travel to England to start training behind closed doors for the ODI series against the England cricket team.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1994 births\nLiving people\nIrish cricketers\nIreland Test cricketers\nIreland Twenty20 International cricketers\nCricketers from County Dublin\nLeinster Lightning cricketers\nMunster Reds cricketers"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.",
"So he was a good runner, but could he bat?",
"Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,",
"Did he ever play in the World Series?",
"). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908."
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
Did he go on to play with anyone after the Cubs?
| 5 |
Did Joe Tinker go on to play with anyone after the Cubs?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"Michael Patrick Rucker (born April 27, 1994) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball (MLB). He made his MLB debut in 2021.\n\nAmateur career\nRucker played high school baseball while attending Auburn Riverside High School in Auburn, Washington. In 2011, as a junior, he was 8–2 with a 1.51 earned run average (ERA). Undrafted out of high school in the 2012 Major League Baseball draft, Rucker enrolled at Gonzaga University to play college baseball for the Bulldogs. After his freshman year at Gonzaga, he transferred to Brigham Young University (BYU), where he played baseball for the Cougars.\n\nIn 2016, as a junior at BYU, Rucker posted an 11–1 record, with a 2.73 ERA over innings, earning a spot on the All-West Coast Conference First Team. After his junior year, Rucker was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 11th round of the 2016 Major League Baseball draft, and he signed with them for $180,000.\n\nProfessional career\nAfter signing, Rucker made his professional debut with the Arizona League Cubs before finishing the season with the Eugene Emeralds; in relief innings pitched between both teams, he did not give up an earned run and was 3–0. He began 2017 with the South Bend Cubs, and after seven relief appearances in which he compiled a 1.42 ERA, he was promoted to the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, where he transitioned into a starting pitcher. In 20 games (15 starts) for Myrtle Beach, he was 5–5 with a 2.51 ERA. He spent the 2018 season with the Tennessee Smokies, going 9–6 with a 3.73 ERA in 26 starts. He returned to Tennessee to begin 2019 and was promoted to the Iowa Cubs during the season. Over innings (pitched mainly in relief), Rucker compiled a 0–3 record with a 4.18 ERA and 93 strikeouts.\n\nOn December 12, 2019, Rucker was selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2019 Rule 5 draft. On March 6, 2020, the Orioles returned Rucker to the Cubs. He did not play a minor league game in 2020 due to the cancellation of the minor league season caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To begin the 2021 season, he was assigned to Iowa.\n\nOn July 30, 2021, Chicago selected his contract and promoted him to the active roster. He made his MLB debut that night against the Washington Nationals, throwing two innings of relief, giving up one run while recording one strikeout. \n\nIn 2021 with the Cubs, he was 0-0 with a 6.99 ERA. He pitched in 28.1 innings over 20 games, and gave up 25 runs, 22 of them earned.\n\nSee also\nRule 5 draft results\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1994 births\nLiving people\nArizona League Cubs players\nBaseball players from Mississippi\nBYU Cougars baseball players\nChicago Cubs players\nEugene Emeralds players\nGonzaga Bulldogs baseball players\nIowa Cubs players\nMajor League Baseball pitchers\nMyrtle Beach Pelicans players\nPeople from Columbus, Mississippi\nSouth Bend Cubs players\nTennessee Smokies players",
"Yoanner Negrín (born April 29, 1984) is a professional baseball player who is currently with the Leones de Yucatán of the Mexican Baseball League. He was signed by the Cubs as a non-drafted free agent on July 25, 2011, and began his professional career with the Arizona League Cubs. In 2012, he spent most of the season on loan to the Mexican League and pitched in 24 games (with 16 starts) for the Olmecas de Tabasco. He played for the Spain national baseball team in the 2013 World Baseball Classic.\n\nCareer\nOn July 25, 2011, Negrín signed with the Chicago Cubs as an undrafted free agent and began his career with the Arizona League Cubs. He began the 2012 season with the Daytona Cubs, but was loaned to the Olmecas de Tabasco with whom he pitched in 24 games for, before being returned to the Cubs organization. Negrín played in the Cubs organization through the 2015 season, and on June 23, 2015, Negrín was loaned to the Leones de Yucatán. Negrín did not play in a game in 2020 due to the cancellation of the Mexican League season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1984 births\nBaseball pitchers\nLiving people\n2013 World Baseball Classic players\nArizona League Cubs players\nPeoria Chiefs players\nDaytona Cubs players\nOlmecas de Tabasco players\nTennessee Smokies players\nIowa Cubs players\nCocodrilos de Matanzas players\nLeones del Caracas players\nCuban expatriate baseball players in Venezuela\nYaquis de Obregón players\nCuban expatriate baseball players in Mexico"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.",
"So he was a good runner, but could he bat?",
"Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,",
"Did he ever play in the World Series?",
"). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.",
"Did he go on to play with anyone after the Cubs?",
"Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game."
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
What was the outcome of the fight?
| 6 |
What was the outcome of Joe Tinker's fight against Rabbit Maranville?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"The PFL 2 mixed martial arts event for the 2018 season of the Professional Fighters League was held on June 21, 2018, at the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. It was the second regular season event of 2018 and included only fights in the lightweight and light heavyweight divisions.\n\nBackground\nRashid Magomedov was expected to face Jason High at this event, however Magomedev was removed from the bout due to injury and replaced by Efrain Escudero. On weigh in day, the fight suffered another set back as Escudero missed the 156-pound weight limit by six pounds. As a result, Escudero became ineligible to earn points regardless of the outcome.\n\nResults\n\nStandings after event\nThe point system consists of outcome based scoring and bonuses for an early win. Under the outcome based scoring system, the winner of a fight receives 3 points and the loser receives 0 points. If the fight ends in a draw, both fighters will receive 1 point. The bonus for winning a fight in the first, second, or third round is 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point respectively. For example, if a fighter wins a fight in the first round, then the fighter will receive 6 total points. If a fighter misses weight, then the fighter that missed weight will receive 0 points and his opponent will receive 3 points due to a walkover victory.\n\nLightweight\n\nAlthough Efrain Escudero won his fight, he was ineligible to earn point due to missing the weight limit. By rule, the loser, Jason High, is credited with three points for walkover.\n\nLight Heavyweight\n\nSee also\nList of PFL events\nList of current PFL fighters\n\nReferences\n\nProfessional Fighters League\nEvents in Chicago\n2018 in mixed martial arts\nMixed martial arts in Chicago\n2018 in sports in Illinois\nJune 2018 sports events in the United States",
"The PFL 3 mixed martial arts event for the 2019 season of the Professional Fighters League was held on June 6, 2019, at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. This was the third regular season event of 2019 and included fights in the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.\n\nBackground\nRonny Markes weighed in at 211.8 pounds, 5.8 pounds over the Light Heavyweight limit of 206 pounds. The bout was held as scheduled. However, Markes was ineligible for points if he were to win the match while his opponent Sigi Pesaleli has been awarded 3 points regardless of the outcome of the match.\n\nResults\n\nStandings After Event\nThe point system consists of outcome based scoring and bonuses for an early win. Under the outcome based scoring system, the winner of a fight receives 3 points and the loser receives 0 points. If the fight ends in a draw, both fighters will receive 1 point. The bonus for winning a fight in the first, second, or third round is 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point respectively. For example, if a fighter wins a fight in the first round, then the fighter will receive 6 total points. If a fighter misses weight, then the fighter that missed weight will receive 0 points and his opponent will receive 3 points due to a walkover victory.\n\nLight Heavyweight\n\nHeavyweight\n\nSee also\nList of PFL events\nList of current PFL fighters\n\nReferences\n\nProfessional Fighters League\n2019 in mixed martial arts\nMixed martial arts in New York (state)\nSports in Long Island\n2019 in sports in New York (state)\nJune 2019 sports events in the United States\nEvents on Long Island\nEvents in Uniondale, New York"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.",
"So he was a good runner, but could he bat?",
"Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,",
"Did he ever play in the World Series?",
"). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.",
"Did he go on to play with anyone after the Cubs?",
"Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game.",
"What was the outcome of the fight?",
"In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge."
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
Is there anything else that is interesting?
| 7 |
Besides Joe Tinker's tendency to get into fights, is there anything else that is interesting about Tinker?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon",
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison",
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.",
"So he was a good runner, but could he bat?",
"Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,",
"Did he ever play in the World Series?",
"). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.",
"Did he go on to play with anyone after the Cubs?",
"Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game.",
"What was the outcome of the fight?",
"In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.",
"Is there anything else that is interesting?",
"Tinker is perhaps best known for the \"Tinker to Evers to Chance\" double play combination in the poem \"Baseball's Sad Lexicon\","
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
Was the poem ever published?
| 8 |
Was "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" ever published?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"\"A Description of the Morning\" is a poem by Anglo-Irish poet Jonathan Swift, written in 1709. The poem discusses contemporary topics, including the social state of London at the time of the writing, as well as the developing of commerce and business in the area, and the effect the latter had on the common people and common lifestyle in England. Others have also referred to the text as an early example of the oxymoronic \"town eclogue,\" or \"urban georgic\". It was first published in October 1710, in the British magazine the Tatler, which was first printed in the same year of the poem's creation.\n\nFollowing the poem's publication in the Tatler, Swift became an occasional contributor to the content of the magazine, often submitting portions of his work. This collaboration has resulted in Swift's labeling as one of the magazine's more prominent contributors. The subsequent poem by Swift published in the magazine, which was related to \"A Description of the Morning\" and was entitled \"A Description of a City Shower\", covers similar topic matter, discussing the artificiality of life in the city and that existence. It has been described by critics, readers, and even Swift himself as the best poem that he ever wrote: \"They think 'tis the best thing I ever writ, and I think so too\".\n\n\"A Description of the Morning\" is often cited as inspiration for other works, including English artist William Hogarth's series of four paintings, Four Times of the Day, among other works and texts, such as John Gay's \"Trivia\", as well as Swift's own \"A Description of a City Shower\".\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nFairer, David; Gerrard, Christine – Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. \n\nEnglish poems\n1710 poems\nWorks originally published in Tatler (1709 journal)\nWorks by Jonathan Swift",
"\"Eastern poem on the death of Pushkin\" is an elegy of Azerbaijani author Mirza Fatali Akhundov, composed in 1837 in Persian. This poem was his first published work. In 1837 Akhundov prepared a Russian prose translation of his poem, and his friend Bestuzhev a versified one. First time the poem was published in the journal \"Moskovskiy Telegraph\" (Akhundov's translation). The poem was also published in the journal \"Moskovskiĭ Nablyudatel\", with an editorial note welcoming the poem as a tribute not merely to Pushkin but to Russian culture as a whole. Translation of Bestuzhev was published in 1874 in journal \"Russkaya Starina\". Original version of the poem was found and published only in 1936 (translator Pavel Antokolsky).\n\nSources\n\n1837 poems\nAzerbaijani poetry\nWorks by Mirza Fatali Akhundzade"
] |
[
"Joe Tinker",
"Career summary",
"When did he start his career?",
"Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912.",
"Was he known for anything during this time as a shortstop?",
"He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910.",
"So he was a good runner, but could he bat?",
"Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages,",
"Did he ever play in the World Series?",
"). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.",
"Did he go on to play with anyone after the Cubs?",
"Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game.",
"What was the outcome of the fight?",
"In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.",
"Is there anything else that is interesting?",
"Tinker is perhaps best known for the \"Tinker to Evers to Chance\" double play combination in the poem \"Baseball's Sad Lexicon\",",
"Was the poem ever published?",
"written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910."
] |
C_8d8b0cddec63450d8287f949a5de0bbd_0
|
What was the poem about?
| 9 |
What was "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" about?
|
Joe Tinker
|
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908. Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League." Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs. Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge. CANNOTANSWER
|
The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
|
Joseph Bert Tinker (July 27, 1880 – July 27, 1948) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played from 1902 through 1916 for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.
Born in Muscotah, Kansas, Tinker began playing semi-professional baseball in Kansas in the late 19th century. He began his professional career in 1900 in minor league baseball and made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1902. Tinker was a member of the Chicago Cubs dynasty that won four pennants and two World Series championships between 1906 and 1910. After playing one season with Cincinnati in 1913, he became one of the first stars to jump to the upstart Federal League in 1914. After leading the Whales to the pennant in 1915, he returned to the Cubs as their player-manager in 1916, his final season in MLB.
Tinker returned to minor league baseball as a part-owner and manager for the Columbus Senators before moving to Orlando, Florida, to manage the Orlando Tigers. While in Orlando, Tinker developed a real estate firm, which thrived during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. However, the 1926 Miami hurricane and Great Depression cost Tinker most of his fortune, and he returned to professional baseball in the late 1930s.
With the Cubs, Tinker was a part of a great double-play combination with teammates Johnny Evers and Frank Chance that was immortalized as "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". However, Evers and Tinker feuded off the field. Tinker was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, the same year as Evers and Chance. He has also been honored by the Florida State League and the city of Orlando.
Early life
Tinker was born in Muscotah, Kansas. His twin sister died at a young age. When Tinker was two, his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas. There, he began to play baseball for his school's team when he was 14 years old. He played in semi-professional baseball for Hagen's Tailors in 1898, winning the city championship. In 1899, he played for a team based in Parsons, Kansas, until it disbanded. He then joined a team representing Coffeyville, Kansas, as a third baseman, for the remainder of the year.
Tinker started his professional baseball career in 1900, at the age of 19, when Billy Hulen, a teammate of Tinker's with the Coffeyville squad, recommended him to George Tebeau, the manager of the Denver Grizzlies of the Western League. Playing as a second baseman for Denver, Tinker batted .219 in his first 32 games. Tebeau sold Tinker to the Great Falls Indians of the Montana State League in June. Great Falls sold Tinker to the Helena Senators, also in the Montana State League, for $200 later in the season due to the team's financial insolvency.
In 1901, Tinker batted .290 for the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League as their third baseman. He led the league with 37 stolen bases. Receiving interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds of the National League (NL), Tinker decided on the Cubs when teammate Jack McCarthy told him that he felt mistreated from his time with the Reds.
Major league career
Chicago Cubs
When he purchased Tinker's contract, Cubs manager Frank Selee was seeking a replacement at shortstop for Barry McCormick, who had joined the St. Louis Browns of the rival American League. Tinker won the job during spring training. As a rookie in 1902, Tinker batted .261, but also led NL shortstops with 72 errors. Johnny Evers, also a rookie, played second base for the Cubs. With Frank Chance, the team's first baseman, the trio first played together on September 13, 1902, and collaborated on their first double play on September 15.
In the 1903 season, Tinker's batting average improved to .291, and he also contributed 70 RBIs. Tinker led all NL shortstops in the 1906 season with a .944 fielding percentage. On September 14, 1905, Tinker and Evers engaged in a fistfight on the field because Evers had taken a cab to the stadium and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. They did not speak for years following this event.
Tinker led all shortstops in the NL in double plays turned in the 1905 season. Led by Tinker, Evers and Chance, the Cubs had a 116–36 win-loss record in the 1906 season, a record for victories that only was matched by the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 season, in which the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs. Tinker batted .167 in the 1906 World Series as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Cubs in six games. Prior to the 1907 season, Tinker underwent surgery for appendicitis. Tinker batted only .154 in the 1907 World Series, but the Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games.
In the 1908 season, Tinker played all 157 games on the Cubs' schedule. In addition to batting .266, he led the team with 146 hits, six home runs, 14 triples, and a .391 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 570 assists. In the game characterized by Merkle's Boner, Tinker hit an inside-the-park home run against Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, prior to Fred Merkle's baserunning gaffe. In the 1908 NL playoff game, which was a replay of the Merkle game, Tinker hit a leadoff triple off of Mathewson in the third inning, which ignited a four-run rally that helped Chicago to clinch the pennant. Tinker then batted .263 as the Cubs defeated the Tigers in the 1908 World Series in five games. Tinker also hit a home run off of Bill Donovan, the first home run hit in a World Series following the 1905 rules agreement.
In 1909, Tinker, who earned $1,500, demanded a $2,500 salary. He accepted a $200 raise. The Cubs reached the 1910 World Series, and though Tinker batted .333 in the series, the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Following the 1910 season, Tinker threatened to quit the Cubs and play baseball in Australia over a salary dispute.
Tinker led the NL with 486 assists in the 1911 season and led all shortstops in putouts with 333. In August 1911, Chance suspended Tinker for the remainder of the season for using profanity, though he was reinstated two days later.
Garry Herrmann, the owner of the Reds, identified Tinker as an ideal candidate to become his player-manager for the 1912 season. According to Tinker, shareholders of the Reds approached Tinker about his interest in the job, and he then met with Charles W. Murphy, the Cubs' owner, and Chance, then serving as the Cubs' manager. They forbade him from taking the role with Cincinnati, which left Tinker unhappy. Herrmann began to listen to entreaties from his players, who wanted to retain Clark Griffith as manager, but decided to hire Hank O'Day. In the 1912 season, Tinker had a .282 batting average, and scored 80 runs and recorded 75 RBIs, both career records. He again led the league in putouts by a shortstop, with 354. Tinker finished in fourth place in the Chalmers Award voting following the season, behind Larry Doyle, Honus Wagner, and Chief Meyers.
Cincinnati Reds
Murphy named Evers the new manager of the Cubs for the 1913 season. Tinker did not want to play for Evers and met with Murphy and Evers to discuss his transfer to the Reds. Murphy was unhappy with Tinker's high salary demands, which led him to agree to trade Tinker to the Cincinnati Reds in December 1912. The Reds received Tinker, Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk in exchange for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. He signed a contract for an undisclosed salary.
Tinker missed several weeks during the 1913 season when he gave blood for his wife's blood transfusion. Tinker finished the season with a .317 batting average, .445 slugging percentage, and a .968 fielding percentage, all career highs, in 110 games. However, the Reds as a team struggled, finishing the season with a 64–89 win-loss record. Due to the Reds' struggles, Herrmann challenged Tinker's managerial style and sought his resignation. Tinker refused to resign.
Chicago Whales and Cubs
In October 1913, Tinker and Herrmann conferred, leading to Tinker signing a contract to remain the Reds manager for the 1914 season. However, Herrmann fired Tinker in November, leaving him to seek a contract from another team. Tinker complained that Herrmann did not seek his input on player transactions, while Herrmann charged that Tinker did not accept his authority.
Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, viewed Tinker as a good replacement for the released Bob Fisher, their shortstop in 1913. The Cubs, Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies were also interested in acquiring Tinker. Ebbets secured Tinker's release from the Reds for $15,000, with another $10,000 to be paid to Tinker. The teams also agreed to swap players, with Earl Yingling and Herbie Moran going to Cincinnati and Dick Egan joining Brooklyn. Ebbets entered contract negotiations with Tinker.
However, Tinker never received the $10,000 promised to him by Ebbets. He insisted on a $10,000 salary for the 1914 season, higher than the $5,000 Brooklyn was willing to pay. Tinker was willing to accept a three-year contract if it paid $7,500 per season. Tinker decided to jump to the Federal League rather than sign with Brooklyn, signing a three-year contract worth $36,000. He was considered the first "star" player to jump to the Federal League, though he signed with the Federal League the same day as Mordecai Brown.
Joining the Chicago Federals (later known as the Whales) in the Federal League, Tinker served as player-manager. In his role, he signed other major league players to the Federal League, though he could not lure American League pitchers Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators or Smoky Joe Wood from the Boston Red Sox. The Whales drew more fans than the Cubs in those two seasons. The Whales finished in second place in 1914, with Tinker batting .259 despite suffering a broken rib during the season. Tinker tore a muscle in May 1915, ending his season prematurely. With Tinker managing, the Whales won the pennant in 1915. However, the league folded after the 1915 season.
Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Whales, purchased the Cubs and consolidated his two Chicago rosters, retaining Tinker as his manager. Due to the high combined salaries of the Cubs and Whales, which included Brown and Roger Bresnahan, Tinker was tasked with releasing extraneous players from their contracts. He served as the player-manager of the Cubs for the 1916 season.
Career summary
Tinker was the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1912. He was a speedy runner, stealing an average of 28 bases a season and even stealing home twice in one game on July 28, 1910. He also excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories (including four times in fielding percentage). During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times, winning in 1907 and 1908.
Despite being just an average hitter, batting .268 for his career in an era of high batting averages, Tinker had a good amount of success against fellow Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, batting .350 against the Hall of Fame pitcher over his career. In Mathewson's 1912 book, Pitching in a Pinch, he referred to Tinker as "the worst man I have to face in the National League."
Tinker is perhaps best known for the "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play combination in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon", written by the New York Evening Mail newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams in July 1910. The poem was written as a lamentation from the perspective of a New York Giants fan on how the team is consistently defeated by the Chicago Cubs.
Tinker was also noted as a fighter. In addition to fighting Evers, Tinker defeated Egan in a fight after a game and fought Rabbit Maranville during a game. In 1908, he was arrested for assault when he got into a fight with a fan at a saloon he owned. He was acquitted of the charge.
Later life
In December 1916, Tinker became part-owner of the Columbus Senators of the American Association, with Thomas E. Wilson serving as the principal owner. The duo paid $65,000 for 75% ownership of the team. Tinker also served as the team's manager. He allowed Grover Hartley to succeed him as manager in 1919 and chose Bill Clymer to manage the team for the 1920 season, leading Hartley to request a trade.
Tinker's wife continued to suffer through poor health, so Tinker sold his interest in the Columbus team after the 1920 season and moved to Orlando, Florida. Tinker became owner and manager of the Orlando Tigers of the Florida State League. The team became known as the "Tinker Tigers" and won the league's championship. Tinker also scouted for the Reds. Tinker's wife committed suicide on Christmas Day, 1923, with a revolver during an apparent nervous breakdown. He remarried in 1926, to Mary Ross Eddington of Orlando. Jack Hendricks of the Reds served as Tinker's best man. He married his third wife, Susanna Margaret Chabot, in 1942.
Tinker ended his involvement in professional baseball, focusing instead on his real estate ventures during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He developed a successful real estate firm, buying and selling land in Orange County and Seminole County. He purchased the Longwood Hotel, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1926. Tinker convinced Reds owner Garry Herrmann to use his stadium in Orlando for their spring training site in 1923.
Tinker made up to $250,000 in his real estate business. However, his fortunes began to change in 1926, when the stock market receded and the 1926 Miami hurricane damaged significant areas of South Florida. During the Great Depression, he was forced to liquidate most of his real estate holdings. Tinker owned a billiard parlor during the Depression. He opened one of Orlando's first bars after the end of Prohibition. He also returned to baseball. Tinker scouted the Philadelphia Athletics' hitters for the Cubs prior to the 1929 World Series.
During the 1930 season, Tinker returned to baseball as a coach for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, who were managed by Clymer. Tinker became the manager of the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League after the dismissal of Nick Allen in August. The owner of the Springfield Ponies of the Eastern League attempted to convince Tinker to manage his team in 1931. Tinker assumed managerial duties of the Orlando Gulls in mid-May 1937, succeeding Nelson Leach. However, he resigned the position in July of that year, as the team was unable to pay his salary. During World War II, Tinker worked at Orlando Air Force Base as a boiler inspector.
According to some tellings, Tinker and Evers did not speak to one another again following their fight for 33 years, until they were asked to participate in the radio broadcast of the 1938 World Series, played between the Cubs and the New York Yankees. Neither Tinker nor Evers knew the other had been invited. However, in 1929, Tinker joined with Evers in signing a 10-week contract to perform a theatrical skit on baseball in different cities across the United States.
Tinker had serious health problems in his later life. Complications of diabetes mellitus and Bright's disease left Tinker near death in 1936, when his physician believed he had 24 hours to live, and 1944, when he was placed in an oxygen tent. However, he returned to health and scouted minor league players for the Boston Braves in 1946. Tinker developed an infection relating to diabetes that in 1947 required the amputation of a toe and persisted until his left leg above the knee was amputated as well. Tinker died at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery and survived by his four children.
Honors
Tinker was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Evers and Chance were inducted that same year. Local leaders in Orlando held a testimonial dinner in his honor in 1947.
Tinker Field, a former stadium once in the shadow of Camping World Stadium (previously known as the Citrus Bowl), and the Tinker Building, Tinker's office in Orlando, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Tinker was posthumously inducted into the Florida State League Hall of Fame in 2009, in its inaugural class.
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
External links
Joe Tinker at The Deadball Era
1880 births
1948 deaths
Baseball players from Kansas
Boston Braves scouts
Chicago Cubs managers
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago Orphans players
Chicago Whales players
Cincinnati Reds managers
Cincinnati Reds players
Denver Grizzlies (baseball) players
Great Falls Indians players
Helena Senators players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Orlando Tigers players
People from Atchison County, Kansas
Portland Webfoots players
| true |
[
"\"The Red Wheelbarrow\" is a poem by American modernist poet and physician William Carlos Williams (1883–1963). The poem was originally published without a title and was designated as \"XXII\" as the twenty-second work in Williams' 1923 book Spring and All, a hybrid collection which incorporated alternating selections of free verse poetry and prose. It is one of Williams' most frequently anthologized poems, and is considered a prime example of early twentieth-century Imagism.\n\nWriting and publication\n\nThe pictorial style in which the poem is written owes much to the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and the precisionist style of Charles Sheeler, an American photographer-painter whom Williams met shortly before composing the poem. The poem represents an early stage in Williams' development as a poet. It focuses on the objective representation of objects, in line with the Imagist philosophy that was ten years old at the time of the poem's publication. The poem is written in a brief, haiku-like free-verse form. With regard to the inspiration for the poem, Williams wrote:\n[\"The Red Wheelbarrow\"] sprang from affection for an old Negro named Marshall. He had been a fisherman, caught porgies off Gloucester. He used to tell me how he had to work in the cold in freezing weather, standing ankle deep in cracked ice packing down the fish. He said he didn’t feel cold. He never felt cold in his life until just recently. I liked that man, and his son Milton almost as much. In his back yard I saw the red wheelbarrow surrounded by the white chickens. I suppose my affection for the old man somehow got into the writing.\n\nIn 2015, research identified the man who had inspired the work as Thaddeus Lloyd Marshall Sr., who lived a few blocks away from Williams in Rutherford, New Jersey and is buried in Ridgelawn Cemetery in neighboring Clifton.\n\nWhen the poem was originally published in Spring and All, it was simply titled \"XXII\", denoting the poem's order within the book. Referring to the poem as \"The Red Wheelbarrow\" has been frowned upon by some critics, including Neil Easterbrook, who said that such reference gives the text \"a specifically different frame\" from that which Williams originally intended.\n\nPrior to the revelation about Marshall, some critics and literary analysts believed that the poem was written about one of Williams' patients, a little girl who was seriously ill:\nThis poem is reported to have been inspired by a scene in Passaic, New Jersey, where Williams was attending to a sick young girl. Worried that his patient may not survive, Williams looked out the window and saw the wheelbarrow and chickens.\n\nAt the time, I remember being mystified by the poem. However, being properly trained in literary criticism, I wondered what the real meaning of the poem was, what it was really about. ... What is left out of Williams' poem is the fact that when he conceived that image he was sitting at the bedside of a very sick child (Williams was a medical doctor). The story goes that as he sat there, deeply concerned about the child, he looked out the window, saw that image, and penned those words.\n\nI remember well the sneer associated with sentimentality in the university English classes of the early 70s. William Carlos Williams' celebrated red wheelbarrow poem was written after a night at the bedside of a desperately sick child, but to directly mention the child and describe that situation would have been to court pathos. Such a poem would have been fit only for greeting cards or the poor souls who didn't know any better than to like Robert Service.\n\nOf course you can't figure it out by studying the text. The clues aren't there. This poem was meant to be appreciated only by a chosen literary elite, only by those who were educated, those who had learned the back story (Williams was a doctor, and he wrote the poem one morning after having treated a child who was near death. The red wheelbarrow was her toy.) \n\nOrrick Johns’ “Blue Under-Shirts Upon a Line”—first published in “Others” in 1915—may have provided the framework upon which Williams developed “The Red Wheelbarrow.” In a 2010 essay by Mark Hama in College Literature, he “proposes that what Williams likely recognized in his friend Johns’s poem was the framework for a new modern American poetic line.”\n\nCritical reception\nThe poet John Hollander cited \"The Red Wheelbarrow\" as a good example of enjambment to slow down the reader, creating a \"meditative\" poem.\n\nThe editors of Exploring Poetry believe that the meaning of the poem and its form are intimately bound together. They state that \"since the poem is composed of one sentence broken up at various intervals, it is truthful to say that 'so much depends upon' each line of the poem. This is so because the form of the poem is also its meaning.\" This viewpoint is also argued by Henry M. Sayre who compared the poem to the readymade artwork of Marcel Duchamp.\n\nPeter Baker analyzed the poem in terms of theme, writing that \"Williams is saying that perception is necessary to life and that the poem itself can lead to a fuller understanding of one's experience.\"\n\nKenneth Lincoln saw humor in the poem, writing \"perhaps it adds up to no more than a small comic lesson in the necessity of things in themselves.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Critical Essays on \"The Red Wheelbarrow\"\n Haj Ross on the linguistics of the poem\n\nAmerican poems\n1923 poems\nPoetry by William Carlos Williams\nImagism\nModernist poems",
"Nature Poem is a book-length poem written by Tommy Pico, a Native American poet born and raised on Viejas Indian Reservation of Kumeyaay nation. It was published by Tin House in 2017. It was preceded by the publication of IRL (2016), followed by both Junk (2018) and Feed (2019). Nature Poem was written in first-person narration following the character Teebs, a queer “NDN” (American Indian). Teebs is a fictional character, and a development of Pico’s alter-ego and performance persona. Teebs confronts the stereotypes put upon him by white colonialism, such as Indian Americans' association with nature, by refusing to write a nature poem.\n\nDevelopment \nNature Poem was inspired by a line from Pico’s first book-length poem, IRL, where he wrote a poem about disliking nature poems. It was initially intended to be published as a zine.\n\nPico's writing frequently uses text-slang, hashtags, pop-culture references, and humor. Nature Poem was written as a series of individual poems meant to be read in sequence.\n\nOften humorously, Teebs discusses dating, sex, and living as a queer person in the city.\n\nTommy Pico uses the character Teebs to show the life of a queer indigenous Indian.\n\nTommy Pico rewrites about the relationship between himself and nature.\n\nPeople say Tommy Pico was late to the “gay poetry game”, Tommy Pico replies with he was right on time.\n\nTommy Pico calls out the monetization and colonization of the indigenous people where people think it’s appropriate to use indigenous culture for their own sake.\n\nReviews \nThe New York Times Book Review wrote that Nature Poem was covertly political and engaging.\n\nNew York Journal of Books writes that this modern poem explores the tendency of American consumer society to view nature as a \"cosmetic accessory,\" while also exploring the contradiction between Teebs' condemnation of \"empty materialism\" and his simultaneous \"love letter\" to it.\n\nLAMBDA Literary writes that Nature Poem questions what is considered appropriate nature poetry and ensures that while searching for a nature poem within the book, readers are confronted with Teebs' experiences of \"domestic violence, structural poverty, environmental racism, and nuclear disaster.\"\n\nAward winning American Poet, Eileen Myles states, “Mix of hey that’s poetry (uncanny resistance) with hey that’s a text and smashing goals & fulfilling them along the way & saying my parents fulfilled them. Doing it differently being alive & an artist. I love this work. Unpredictable & sweet & strong to continue.”\n\nThe Los Angeles Review of Books wrote of Nature Poem: \"Pico’s work is, in parts, a rose at the altar of the international decolonial movement, imagining what our LGBT and the broader community of marginalized Americans look like if we were to shake ourselves of our bourgeois comforts of the Obama Era and truly resist (purposefully un-hashtagged).\"\n\nNature Poem was a Publisher's Weekly Pick of the Week for May 8, 2017.\n\nAwards \n\n Nature Poem won a 2018 American Book Award.\n Nature Poem was a finalist in the LAMBDA Literary Award for Gay Poetry in 2018.\n“ finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award, Feed (Tin House Books, 2019),”\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican Book Award winners\nPoems\nLGBT poetry\n2010s LGBT literature"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center"
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
how was she involved with KCTS-TV?
| 1 |
How was Dixy Lee Ray involved with KCTS-TV?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| true |
[
"KCTS-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 9, is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station licensed to Seattle, Washington, United States and also serving Tacoma. The station is owned by Cascade Public Media. KCTS-TV's studios are located at the northeast corner of Seattle Center adjacent to the Space Needle, and its transmitter is located on Capitol Hill in Seattle. \n\nKCTS-TV is the primary PBS member station for the Seattle–Tacoma market alongside Tacoma-licensed KBTC-TV (channel 28), owned by Bates Technical College; through PBS' Program Differentiation Plan, KCTS-TV carries the majority (75%) of the network's programs, with KBTC-TV carrying the remaining 25%.\n\nOriginally owned and operated by the University of Washington, KCTS-TV became a community licensee in 1987. The station's ownership merged with Crosscut.com to form Cascade Public Media in 2016.\n\nKYVE (virtual channel 47, UHF digital channel 21) in Yakima operates as a semi-satellite of KCTS-TV, serving as the PBS member station for the western portion of the Yakima–Tri-Cities market. KYVE's transmitter is located on Ahtanum Ridge.\n\nHistory\n\nKCTS first went on the air on December 7, 1954, broadcasting from the campus of the University of Washington, the station's original licensee, and using equipment donated by KING-TV owner Dorothy Bullitt. Channel 9 was a sister station to KUOW-FM, which the University of Washington put on the air two years earlier.\n\nDuring the 1950s and 1960s, KCTS primarily supplied classroom instructional programs used in Washington State's K–12 schools, plus National Educational Television (NET) programs. Outside of schoolrooms, KCTS' audience among the general public was somewhat limited, and most programming was in black-and-white until the mid-1970s (although the station did install color capability in 1967).\n\nIn 1970, NET was absorbed into the newly-created Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which commenced broadcasting on October 5. As a PBS member station, KCTS began offering a vastly enhanced scope of programming for the general public, including British programming.\n\nThanks to a major fundraising drive during the mid-1980s, KCTS moved to its present location on the Seattle Center campus in October 1986; shortly after, in 1987, the University of Washington spun off KCTS, and the station became a community licensee, thus separating it from KUOW-FM.\n\nKCTS is seen throughout southwestern British Columbia on local cable systems, as well as across Canada on the Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct satellite providers, as well as on many other Canadian cable TV systems. According to KCTS, around 2 million viewers from Canada tune in each week. KCTS receives substantial financial support from its far-flung Canadian audience as well as from viewers in Washington State.\n\nIn January 2016, as part of a broader strategy to redefine itself as a content provider for various other platforms other than television, the name of the licensee, KCTS Television became Cascade Public Media; its properties included KCTS-TV, Crosscut, a non-profit daily news site, and Spark Public. Cascade Public Media currently consists of KCTS, Crosscut and Piranha Partners.\n\nKYVE history\n\nIn 1994, KCTS merged with KYVE, which has served central Washington since November 1, 1962. However, this was not the first time that the two stations had partnered together; during the early 1960s KYVE's engineers switched to and from KCTS' signal until the station's owners, the Yakima Board of Education, got enough funding for the station to be self-supporting. The station became a community licensee in 1984, but found the going difficult until its merger with KCTS. KYVE did produce a few local programs, including the KYVE Apple Bowl with host Tony Leita, a high school quiz competition; Northwest Outdoors with Wally Pease, an outdoors program; and Country Roads with Gwyn Gilmore, a showcase of country music videos.\n\nDuring the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, some programs included a combined KCTS/KYVE visual bug in the lower-right corner of the screen, indicating they were simulcast to both markets. However, since the early 2000s, KYVE has largely been a straight simulcast of KCTS. Combined, the two stations serve 2.4 million people, accounting for almost two-thirds of Washington state's population.\n\nIts former studios were located at Braeburn Hall at Yakima Valley Community College. But since the start of the millennium, local origination was severely reduced, and eventually, Braeburn Hall was torn down. KYVE later moved to a small office on 2nd Street (at the bottom of the Larson Building). This office is now home to the ticket office and administration for the Yakima Valley Pippins baseball team, and aside from the Ahtanum Ridge transmitter and the legal hourly station ID, KYVE no longer has any presence in Yakima.\n\nProgramming\nKCTS is perhaps best known for producing/distributing the popular PBS Kids show Bill Nye the Science Guy, as well as other programs such as Students by Nature (not a PBS-distributed program), The Miracle Planet, cooking shows by Nick Stellino, Chefs A' Field, and the annual televised high school academic competition KYVE Apple Bowl.\n\nTechnical information\n\nSubchannels\nThe stations' digital signals are multiplexed:\n\nAnalog-to-digital conversion\nKCTS-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 41 to VHF channel 9.\n\nTranslators\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n KCTS 9\n KYVE\n \n \n History KCTS from 1954 through 2003 (Seattle Times)\n Richard J. Meyer papers, at the University of Maryland Libraries. He was a manager of KCTS from 1972 to 1982 and helped in updating equipment, securing a larger budget for the station, and increasing community representation in the show with new employees from the local community.\n\nPBS member stations\nPeabody Award winners\nTelevision channels and stations established in 1954\nCTS-TV\nUniversity of Washington\n1954 establishments in Washington (state)",
"Margaret Elizabeth Chisholm (July 25, 1921 – November 21, 1999) was an American librarian and educator and served as President of the American Library Association from 1987 to 1988. She promoted librarians as skilled in information technology.\n\nEarly life and education \nShe was born Margaret Elizabeth Bergman to Henry D. and Alice Bergman. She attended St. Cloud University and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington in 1951 and her master's degree in library science in 1958. She then began working toward a Ph.D. in administration of higher education.\n\nCareer \nChisholm took her first library job as supervisor of elementary school libraries in the Everett, Washington. She later joined the Everett Community College staff as a librarian. She then taught summer courses at the University of Oregon and later hired her a full time faculty position. She taught a televised course on children's literature, where she became aware of the utility of public educational broadcasting.\n\nShe received her doctorate in administration of higher education in 1966 and began teaching at the University of New Mexico. In 1967, she accepted a position to lead the media program of the Seattle school system and area libraries. In this new position, Chisholm was put on the executive board of Washington University's television station KCTS as a representative of the Seattle school system.\n\nIn 1969, Chisholm moved to the Washington, D.C. area to teach at the University of Maryland. She was named Dean of the College of Library and Information Science in 1969 and served in that role until 1975.\n\nFrom 1975 to 1981, she served as vice president for University Relations and Development at the University of Washington and the chairperson of KCTS. She was the university's first female vice president. She became Director of the University of Washington's Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 1981 and served in that position until she retired in 1992.\n\nPublic broadcasting \nWhile Dr. Chisholm held her position as Vice President of University of Washington's Relations and Development, she became involved in national efforts for public broadcasting. She was nominated to the Board of Directors of the Public Broadcasting Service. Dr. Chisholm was involved in PBS's decision to create a new organization, Association for Public Broadcasting, to represent public television station managers' interests and to aid with lobbying and planning efforts of public TV. She served on its interim board of trustees and participated in the search for its first chief executive. From 1979 to 1983, she served as the vice president of the National Association of Public Television Stations executive committee. Dr. Chisholm served several terms on the Association for Public Broadcasting Board and remained a trustee at large with the organization, later renamed America's Public Television Stations.\n\nPublications\n \"Information technology : design and applications\" with Nancy D. Lane (G.K. Hall, 1991) \n \"Instructional design and the library media specialist\" with Donald P. Ely and David Bender (American Association of School Librarians, 1979) \n \"Media personnel in education : a competency approach\" with Donald P. Ely (Prentice-Hall, 1976)\n \"A general information system for educational technology (ETGIS) : a conceptual scheme\" with Donald P. Ely (U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1974)\n\nReferences\n\n \n\n1921 births\n1999 deaths\nAmerican librarians\nAmerican women librarians\nPresidents of the American Library Association\nUniversity of Washington Information School alumni\nUniversity of Washington faculty\nUniversity of Maryland, College Park faculty\nUniversity of New Mexico faculty\n20th-century American women\nAmerican women academics"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology."
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
what was the name of the show?
| 2 |
What was the name of Dixy Lee Ray's show on KCTS-TV?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
Animals of the Seashore,
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| true |
[
"What's My Name? was a 30-minute radio program in the United States. The program was hosted by Arlene Francis and was among the first radio shows to offer cash prizes to contestants.\n\nFormat\nContestants on What's My Name? had to identify a person from a maximum of 10 clues given by the show's two hosts. People to be identified were celebrities and historical characters. In the show's early days, a correct guess on the first clue earned the contestant $10; the amount earned dropped by $1 with each additional clue. In 1948, the top prize was increased to $100, with $50 and $25 prizes, respectively, for identification on the second and third clues.\n\nThe program also involved listener participation to some extent, as listeners could send in questions to be used on the air. People who submitted questions received $10 for each question used.\n\nA review of the first episode of What's My Name? offered little hope for its future, calling it \"a rather drab show.\" The reviewer explained: \"The program got off to a bad start in that the participants, for the most part, were unable to guess the identities of the characters asked for in the game until long after the listeners got the drift of the proceedings.\" The reviewer did, however, note that the show was \"ably conducted by Bud Hulick and Arlene Francis.\"\n\nFrancis was a constant on What's My Name?, serving as the hostess in all eight of its iterations on radio while her male counterparts changed. Hulick was the host in three versions. Other hosts over the years were Fred Uttal, John Reed King, Ward Wilson and Carl Frank. Harry Salter and his orchestra provided the music.\n\nOne source noted that What's My Name? \"helped make a broadcasting fixture out of Arlene Francis.\"\n\nA 1942 review gave What's My Name? a much better evaluation than the earlier review mentioned above. Paul Ackerman wrote in The Billboard, \"Name is well produced, moves quickly and manages to maintain an informal atmosphere directly traceable to Miss Francis's and Mr. King's manner with the contestants.\"\n\nBackground\nWhat's My Name? was the brainchild of radio writers Joe Cross and Ed Byron. An August 1940 magazine article related that, after listening to a program called Professor Quiz, \"the two of them shut themselves up in a hotel room, vowing they wouldn't come out until they'd thought up a game program that was as much fun as Professor Quiz. What's My Name? was the result.\"\n\nTelevision\n\nA version of What's My Name? was incorporated into the Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show on television. The program (originally titled The Speidel Show after its sponsor) ran from September 18, 1950 to May 23, 1954. In the show's early years, each episode began with a comedy skit featuring Winchell and Mahoney. That skit was followed by a quiz segment, What's My Name?, similar to the radio program. The host for the quiz was Ted Brown.\n\nThe TV version of the quiz failed to achieve the success of its radio predecessor. A review in The Billboard in August 1951 said: Speidel has tried hard all season to combine the very accomplished Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney team and the former What's My Name? format into a successful stanza. The attempt has failed and, if anything, the talents of the ventriloquist and his little pal have been blunted by misuse.\"\n\nBy 1953, the What's My Name? component of the Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show had been removed.\n\nBroadcast Schedule\n\nNote: \"NA\"—information was not listed on the cited page.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican game shows\n1930s American radio programs\n1940s American radio programs\n1950s American radio programs\nAmerican radio game shows\n1930s American game shows\n1940s American game shows\n1950s American game shows\nMutual Broadcasting System programs\nNBC radio programs\nABC radio programs",
"Thingee is a puppet which was used as an unofficial ambassador and icon for New Zealand children's television during the 1990s, appearing in multiple television shows such as The Son of a Gunn Show, and also children's programme, What Now. He appeared on T-shirts, dolls, puzzles and advertising all over New Zealand. He was voiced by After School camera operator and director Alan Henderson, brother of Tony, who died on 15 February 2020.\n\nAppearance\nThingee was usually presented as a grey (with brown undertones) humanoid thing with large bulbous eyes, a large toothless snout and a domed head. In a similar manner to the Rainbow characters Zippy and George, he was generally shown from the shoulders up, with one arm.\n\nCharacter history\nAccording to Stephen Campbell, one of the creators, both Thingee's name and species were accidental. The puppet was originally based on a duck, and the name used as a placeholder until they thought of a proper one.\n\nThingee first appeared on After School in 1987, under the hosting of Richard Evans and Annie Roach. Viewers first saw what was believed to be perhaps the egg of a dragon, Thingee existed in egg form for several weeks on the show until he hatched. Thingee later teamed up with Jason Gunn, who would from then on become his regular colleague, in 1988 when Jason took over as host for After School. Jason and Thingee continued working together in 1989 on After 2.\n\nFrom 1992 on he co-hosted Jason Gunn vehicles Jase TV and The Son of a Gunn Show. They later starred in the straight to video film Jason and Thingee's Big Adventure. Thingee also appeared in celebrity editions of Wheel of Fortune, test cricket commentary and Face the Music in 1992.\n\nFrom 1996 he was a host on the Sunday morning television show What Now, where it was revealed that the character was an alien and eventually Thingee made contact with his people and made the decision to return home to his own planet. As a result, the character was retired from New Zealand television.\n\nAppearances after retirement\n\n 2001 – Thingee helped co-host the What Now 20th birthday party\n 2007 – Thingee came back to TV on the TVNZ lifestyle show Good Morning\n 2008 – A further appearance on Good Morning, due to the TVNZ Goodnight Kiwi returning to the airwaves\n 2010 – Thingee appeared once again on Good Morning in celebration of the 50th anniversary of TVNZ\n 2010 – In a dream on the show Wanna-Ben\n 2012 – Wishing TVNZ U a Happy Birthday\n 2015 – TV3 appearance on 7 Days (S07E09) alongside Jason Gunn\n 2017 – SKY Sport behind the scenes at the cricket\n\nAppearances in popular culture\nDuring a recording of Son of a Gunn in 1994, one of Thingee's eyeballs popped out. While this outtake was not included in the episode that was eventually broadcast, shortly afterwards the clip was screened on a TVNZ bloopers show, where it found fame and became an iconic Kiwi television moment. The eyepop scene was used in the opening credits of the satirical show Eating Media Lunch.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The Day I Met Thingee, New Zealand Herald\n The Son of a Gunn Show: Thingee's Eye Pop\n\nNew Zealand culture\nNew Zealand television personalities\nPuppets"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.",
"what was the name of the show?",
"Animals of the Seashore,"
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
what was the show about?
| 3 |
What was the subject matter of Dixy Lee Ray's KCTS-TV show?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
marine biology.
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| true |
[
"\"What About Us\" is a single released by British-Irish girl group the Saturdays. Their first international single, it is the lead single from their first American-only release EP, Chasing the Saturdays (2013). It also acts as the second single from their fourth studio album Living for the Weekend (2013). The single was first released in the United States and Canada on 18 December 2012 via digital download, before being released in the United Kingdom on 16 March 2013 via CD single and digital download. The single was written by Camille Purcell, Ollie Jacobs, Philip Jacobs. There are two different versions of the track which have been recorded and released: a solo version, which was released exclusively in the US and Canada, and a version featuring Jamaican rapper Sean Paul, which was released internationally. Music critics gave the song positive feedback, but questioned the heavily auto-tuned chorus and the move away from the group's traditional sound.\n\nA music video was released for the song was published and released via the Saturdays' Vevo account on 11 January 2013. The video was filmed in Los Angeles, where the band were filming their US reality series, Chasing the Saturdays, which is broadcast through E!. An acoustic version of \"Somebody Else's Life\", which can be heard on the opening titles of the show, was released as a B-side. The Saturdays went on to a promotional tour in order to get the song \"out there\" in the United States, and appeared on a number of different chat shows including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Jeff Probst Show, Fashion Police, Chelsea Lately and The Today Show in New York City. They later went on to a promotional tour in the UK, visiting radio stations around the country.\n\n\"What About Us\" gained commercial success, debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart to become the Saturdays' twelfth UK top 10 single and first ever number-one. In Ireland, the song debuted at number six on the Irish Singles Chart, gaining the group their fifth top 10 single there. With first-week sales of 114,000 copies and 40,000 copies more sold than their closest competitor to number one, \"What About Us\" was the fastest-selling single of 2013 in the UK until it was overtaken by Naughty Boy's \"La La La\" two months later. In December 2013, it was announced as the eleventh fastest-selling single of the year overall. As of August 2014, the song has sold over 400,000 copies in the UK. On 23 December 2013, Mollie King posted a photo on Instagram of her holding a 500,000 sales plaque from their record label, with the message that \"What About Us\" had sold over 500,000 copies in UK and USA, with 120,000 copies in the US alone even without charting on the Billboard Hot 100.\n\nBackground \n\nIn 2012, it was announced that the Saturdays had received an offer to star in their own reality television programme, Chasing the Saturdays, broadcast through E! Network. While filming their show, the band began visiting the recording studio, where they began work with Rodney \"Darkchild\" Jerkins.\n\nThe Saturdays felt comfortable with their US labels, and thanked them for not only giving them a chance in North America, but for making them feel at ease and welcome which took a lot of \"weight of our shoulders\". The band said they have always respected the labels due to the massive success they've had with artists. The band had been working with Demi Lovato in the recording studio.\n\nComposition\n\n\"What About Us\" was written and produced by Ollie Jacobs and acts as the Saturdays first single to be released in North America where it could appear on the Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100. In America its release coincided with their TV show, Chasing the Saturdays. The track is the band's fourteenth single to be released in the United Kingdom and Ireland and the track is a dance-pop song. Before the release of the song, Mollie King said that the band were excited to share the track as they had the song \"for months\" She said: \"I can't wait for everyone to hear it and to get to perform it. I'm just so excited about this one, I think it's going down really well.\" The band said they didn't want to change their type of music just for the American public and would stick to their roots and the genre they enjoyed to perform. King spoke: \"We've always made a point that we don't want to change to go to America. We wanted to go over as we are and if they like us, they like us and if they don't, they don't!\" King said that the track is reggae pop music, a little different from what band usually record, but the track is still really \"dancey\" and \"upbeat\", as well a good song to dance to on either stage or at a club. When Una Healy was asked what the song was about she said that she \"did not know\" what the song was exactly about. \"To be honest I was trying to figure out the other day what exactly it's about. I could bullshit away telling you, but I really don't know. But I think it's all about someone driving you crazy.\" She said she \"thinks\" that 'What About Us' part means \"me and you getting together\". She did point out that she did know that the song was about \"making you happy\" and that the track was good for the summer and will get you on the dancefloor. The band teased saying that \"What About Us\" is a pop track, and that is a good indication of what the expect from the album, and that they've paired up with Diane Warren to record a few ballads and not just pop tracks. \"What About Us\" is the only collaboration on the album.\n\nRelease\n\"What About Us\" was confirmed as the Saturdays' first single to be released in North America, and would be released on 18 December 2012 to coincide with their American reality show, Chasing the Saturdays. It was also revealed that the track would be released as the lead single from the band's North America released only Extended play, Chasing the Saturdays, which was named after the show. Some critics said that releasing \"What About Us\" from an EP for the US market was a \"wise decision\". One critic said: For, throwing out a traditional release on the back of a show that isn't (yet) a hit would ultimately be setting them up for failure. What's more, the EP allows their \"storyline\" for the next season of the show (should there be one) to revolve around recording an album. In the United Kingdom, it was revealed that \"What About Us\" would be the follow-up single from \"30 Days\" in the UK and Ireland, and therefore would not be the lead single from the band's fourth studio album. The band announced that before the release of the album, there would be another single release from the album. The follow-up single was revealed to be titled \"Gentleman\".\n\nJust like all the band's previous singles, the record was accepted by all A-Lists at radio stations. The UK and Ireland version of the track features a guest rap from Sean Paul. Whereas the North American version does not feature vocals from Sean Paul and only vocals from the band. The original version of the track last 3 minutes and 24 seconds, whereas the version which features Sean Paul lasts 3 minutes and 40 seconds. The single was released with B-side, an Acoustic version of a brand new track, \"Somebody Else's Life\", which is the opening theme to Chasing the Saturdays. \"What About Us\" was released as a digital download EP, and this featured the single version which features Sean Paul, the solo version and the B-side track. Upon the release in North America, there was a digital remixes EP which featured remixes of \"What About Us\" by a number of DJs including: Seamus Haji, Guy Scheiman, the Buzz Junkies and 2nd Adventure and this was also made available to purchase on 18 December 2012. While in the UK, the CD single was made available to be from stores from 18 March 2013. On the CD single featured \"What About Us\", the B-side \"Somebody Else's Life\".\n\nThe band decided to release \"What About Us\" differently between the United Kingdom and the United States, \"What About Us\" was released onto the charts without any airplay and without a music video accompanying the release, something the band experienced in the UK, with \"Notorious\". Whereas in the UK, \"What About Us\" was released with airplay and the music video being released before the release of the single. During this time, Frankie Sandford became ambassadors for mental health after Sandford battled depression. The band said they choose \"What About Us\" to be the lead single in the US and follow-up single from \"30 Days\" because they all loved it once they demoed it and it gave them a \"really good feeling\" They also said it is a fresh start for a new album, with a \"reggae vibe\", but still a pop record. The Saturdays said that Sean Paul was \"perfect\" for the UK version of the song. They said that he was \"just so nice\" and that he would be present during some of the promotional performances when the single was released.\n\nCritical reception\nRobert Copsey of Digital Spy said that Rochelle Humes asks in a \"curious Jamaican-flecked timbre\" during the intro of \"What About Us\". During the lyrics \"Oh why are we are waiting so long I'm suffocating\", and he went on to say that it is in reference to \"man-related drama\" and also pointing out that there is plenty of that on their reality series, Chasing the Saturdays. Copsey later went on to tip the band for their first number-one single as he said: \"but we suspect it could also be a sly wink at their enduring quest for a number one single\". He said that track was \"radio-friendly\" due to the \"trace beats\" and \"demanding their contrary lover to give up the hard-to-get schtick sharpish\". Although he didn't think that the song was \"original\" enough for the band, but is \"strangely addictive\" and he would be happy to see the song at the top of the charts.\n\n4Music described the song as a \"electro-pop affair with a bucket-load of synths thrown in for good measure. It's quite good, but we wonder if they should reconsider this single choice if they truly want to launch an invasion on America's charts.\" Idolator wrote a mixed review criticizing the track for lacking the group's signature style; \"While the beat is pounding enough to nab the girls a chart hit, it doesn’t feel true to the spirit of The Sats. Then again, maybe it isn’t supposed to.\" Jessica Sager from PopCrush also touched on the departure from their original sound; \"It’s a pretty big departure from their usual sugary oeuvre, but not necessarily in a bad way.\" She went on to praise Sean Paul's feature; \"His presence on the track gives it an air of authenticity and fun, but pretty much only during his own verses and interjections.\" However, she criticised the mediocre attempt at dialect the groups sing in throughout the track; \"When the Saturdays try to emulate island tones, it sounds a little awkward and they start out like that right off the bat, but go in and out of the undistinguished dialect throughout the song.\" She also felt that the heavily Auto-Tuned chorus was not need; \"The Auto-Tune seems extraneous, because the Saturdays can actually sing well without it.\" She end the review by labeling their latest effort as \"generic\" and \"not the best the Saturdays have to offer\", also rating it two and a half stars out of five.\n\nCommercial reception\n\"What About Us\" debuted at number 44 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart for the week dated 8 December 2012. This marks their first ever chart entry in the United States and it has since peaked at number twenty-seven. The song debuted at number 79 on the Canadian Hot 100, becoming the highest Canadian debut for a new artist in 2013.\n\nThe Saturdays admitted that they did not want to get their hopes up on debuting at number one on the UK Singles Charts due to being beaten to number-one three times before with \"Forever Is Over\", \"Just Can't Get Enough\" and \"Missing You\", after being number one on the Official Chart Update. During the latter two occasions, it was rapper Flo Rida who had pushed them back to numbers two and three respectively. It was revealed that the Saturdays had knocked Justin Timberlake's \"Mirrors\" off the number-one spot on the UK Singles Chart. This became the band's first ever number-one single in the United Kingdom, it also became Sean Paul's second number one in the United Kingdom after being featured on \"Breathe\" in 2003. For every one copy that Timberlake's \"Mirrors\" sold, the Saturdays sold two more copies of \"What About Us\". \"What About Us\" sold 114,000 copies in the first week of release, making it, at the time, the fastest selling single of 2013. The track sold 40,000 copies more than Timberlake, who was pushed back to number-two on the UK Singles Charts. The band said they were thrilled to be the UK's number-one with \"What About Us\". They went on to thanking their fans for supporting the single and supporting them for the past five years.\n\n\"What About Us\" debuted at number six on the Irish Singles Chart, marking the band's fifth top ten single in that country. \"What About Us\" made its debut at number thirty-six on the New Zealand Singles Chart.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"What About Us\" was filmed during the summer of 2012 in Los Angeles, while the Saturdays were filming their reality television series. The North American version of the video was released via the Saturdays' official Vevo account on YouTube on 11 January 2013. A variant of the video, featuring vocals and additional scenes of the women with Sean Paul, was later released on 5 February 2013.\n\nLive performances and promotion\nThe Saturdays appeared in a number of nightclubs throughout 2012 in the United States performing \"What About Us\" along other hits. On 14 January 2013, the group made their first televised performance of the single on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It was their first performance done on American television. On 16 January, the girls performed \"What About Us\" on The Today Show in New York City. Along with the performances, they appeared on chat shows such as Chelsea Lately, Daybreak, Fashion Police, Lorraine, The Jeff Probst Show, Loose Women, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Sunday Brunch and What's Cooking? to promote the single.\n\nTrack listings\nUS digital download\n\"What About Us\" - 3:24\n\nCD Single - UK Version Only\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 3:40\n\"What About Us\" - 3:24\n\"Somebody Else's Life\" (Acoustic) - 3:18\n\nUS Digital remixes EP\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Radio Edit) - 3:06\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Club Mix) - 6:35\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Dub) - 6:49\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Radio Edit) - 3:59\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Club Mix) - 7:35\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Dub) - 7:20\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Radio Edit) - 3:23\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Club Mix) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Radio Edit) - 4:24\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Club Mix) - 6:36\n\nEurope and Oceania EP - digital download\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 3:40\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [The Buzz Junkies Radio Edit] - 3:23\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [Seamus Haji Radio Edit] - 3:37\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Radio Edit) - 3:58\n\"What About Us\" (Extended Mix) - 3:49 (only available through pre-order)\n\nUK Digital Remixes EP\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Club Mix) - 7:35\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Club Mix) - 6:36\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Club Mix) - 6:35\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Club Mix) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Radio Edit) - 4:24\n\nRevamped Version\n\"What About Us\" - 3:24\n\"Somebody Else's Life\" (Acoustic) - 3:18\n\"What About Us\" (Extended Mix) - 3:49\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Radio Edit) - 4:24\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Radio Edit) - 3:58\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [The Buzz Junkies Radio Edit] - 3:23\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [Seamus Haji Radio Edit] - 3:37\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Club Mix) - 6:36\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Club Mix) - 7:35\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Club Mix) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Club Mix) - 6:35\n\nCredits and personnel\n\"What About Us\" was recorded at Rollover Studios in London.\n\nOllie Jacobs a.k.a. Art Bastian ~ Songwriter, Producer, Vocal Producer, Mix Engineer\n\nPhillip Jacobs ~ co-writer\nCamille Purcell ~ co-writer\nThe Saturdays ~ vocals\nSean Paul ~ guest vocalist\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease and radio history\n\nSee also\n\nList of UK Singles Chart number ones of the 2010s\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n feat. Sean Paul\n\nThe Saturdays songs\nSean Paul songs\n2012 singles\nDance-pop songs\nNumber-one singles in Scotland\nUK Singles Chart number-one singles\nSongs written by Camille Purcell\n2012 songs\nFascination Records singles\nSongs written by Ollie Jacobs",
"The Sex Education Show was a British sex education television show. It was presented by Anna Richardson and Dr. Radha Modgil and was broadcast on Channel 4. It was designed to speak frankly about sex to teenagers, answering any questions they had about sexual intercourse, puberty, relationships, body image, etc.\n\nSeries 1\nThe first series was titled The Sex Education Show. It includes six episodes and was broadcast in September–October 2008.\n\nSeries 2\nThe second series was titled The Sex Education Show vs Pornography. It includes four episodes and was broadcast between 30 March and 2 April 2009.\n\nSeries 3\nThe third series was titled The Sex Education Show: Am I Normal?. It includes four episodes and was broadcast 5–8 July 2010.\n\nSeries 4\nThe fourth series was titled The Sex Education Show: Stop Pimping Our Kids. It includes four episodes and was broadcast 19 April 2011, the last episode was shown on 6 December 2011.\n\nThis series campaign included the setting up of a Facebook page and a petition. The Facebook page took some criticism for condemning what many believed were perfectly normal children's clothes, and eventually a breakaway satirical Facebook page 'Stop Stop Pimping Our Kids' was set up.\n\nSeries 5\nThe fifth series was titled The Sex Education Show. It includes six episodes and was broadcast between 19 July and 23 August 2011.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n2010s British television series\n2008 British television series debuts\nChannel 4 original programming\nSex education television series\nSex education in the United Kingdom"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.",
"what was the name of the show?",
"Animals of the Seashore,",
"what was the show about?",
"marine biology."
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
did the show perform well?
| 4 |
Did Dixy Lee Ray's show perform well on KCTS-TV?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| true |
[
"\"That Night\" is a song performed by Latvian band Carousel. It represented Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 on 16 February 2019. It was performed at the second semi-final, but did not quality for the final.\n\nEurovision Song Contest\n\nThe song represented Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, after Carousel were selected through Supernova 2019, the music competition that selects Latvia's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. On 28 January 2019, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Latvia was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 16 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show. Once all the competing songs for the 2019 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the show's producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Latvia performed in position 5. The entry did not qualify for the final.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2019 songs\nEurovision songs of 2019\nEurovision songs of Latvia\n2019 singles",
"\"Heaven\" is a song performed by Montenegrin vocal group D mol. It was chosen to represent Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 on 9 February 2019. The song did not progress to the final.\n\nEurovision Song Contest\n\nThe song represented Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 through Montevizija 2019, the national final organised by RTCG to select Montenegro's entry. On 28 January 2019, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Montenegro was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 14 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show. Once all the competing songs for the 2019 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the show's producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Montenegro performed in position 2, and did not qualify for the final.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2019 songs\nEurovision songs of 2019\nEurovision songs of Montenegro\n2019 debut singles\nPop songs\nSongs about Heaven\nUniversal Music Group singles"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.",
"what was the name of the show?",
"Animals of the Seashore,",
"what was the show about?",
"marine biology.",
"did the show perform well?",
"Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum"
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
when did the show air?
| 5 |
When did Dixy Lee Ray's show air on KCTS-TV?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| false |
[
"The Wonsan International Friendship Air Festival or Wonsan Air Festival is an air show first held in September 2016 at Kalma Airport in Wonsan, North Korea.\n\n2016\nAt the 2016 edition the Korean People's Army Air Force displayed a number of its aircraft, including Su-25, MiG-21 and MiG-29 combat aircraft. In addition Tu-134, Tu-154, An-24, Il-62 and Il-76 aircraft of Air Koryo, the North Korean national airline, also participated. Around 10,000-15,000 local spectators watched the show, as did a number of international journalists and around 200 international aviation enthusiasts.\n\n2017\nInitially there were plans to hold the air show every two years, but in March 2017 it was announced that a second edition of the air show would be held between 23 and 24 September 2017. It was announced that the MiG-23 fighter would appear.\n\nIn August 2017, a month before the event, the 2017 edition of the show was cancelled for \"geopolitical reasons\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAir shows\nAviation in North Korea\n2016 establishments in North Korea",
"The Kecskemét International Air Show is a two-day-long air show held since the early 1990s at the Kecskemét Air Base of the Hungarian Defence Force. In 2008, when the annual Royal International Air Tattoo was cancelled, the Kecskemét Air Show became that year's biggest air show held in Europe. It was last held in August 2021.\n\nHistory\n\nThe first air show at Kecskemét was held on 18 and 19 August 1990. The show became the first occasion that NATO and Warsaw Pact military aircraft met in peaceful conditions, when two Soviet Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29s and two United States Air Force General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons arrived together.\n\nAfter a seven-year break, during which two air shows were held at Taszár Air Base, the Air Show was again held at Kecskemét, on 24 and 25 May 1997. The next show, held the following year, celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Hungarian Defense Force, and the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Air Force. As well as Hungarian Air Force MiG-29s, the show featured the Turkish Stars aerobatic team. The 2000 show, held on 20 and 21 May, saw the first appearance of the Slovakian White Albatrosses and the Italian Frecce Tricolori aerobatic teams. \n\nOn 16 and 17 August 2003, Kecskemét Air Base hosted the biggest air show ever held in Hungary so far. Three air force aerobatic teams accepted invitations to attend: the Frecce Tricolori, the Patrouille de France and the Turkish Stars. After a planned two-year recess, the Air Show was held again in 2005, on 6 and 7 August. The organisers planned a huge gathering of Mikoyan-Gurevich aircraft. All air arms operating MiG aircraft were invited, but very few actually accepted, so the reunion was cancelled.\n\nThe 2007 Air Show was held on 11 and 12 August. The Krila Oluje aerobatic team from Croatia performed for the first time. The next show was held the following year, on 16 and 17 August. This was the first occasion the Eurofighter Typhoon visited Hungary to participate at an air show. Also, one of the world's biggest military cargo aircraft, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III made its first appearance at a Hungarian air show.\n\nThe next show was two years later, on 7 and 8 August 2010. The French Dassault Rafale visited Hungary for the first time. This year's show provided the last opportunity for the public to see MiG-29s in Hungarian colors, as the Hungarian Air Force had announced it would retire its MiG-29s from active service, replacing them with Saab JAS 39 Gripens. At the end of the show, Hungarian MiG-29s simulated a dogfight situation against Gripen aircraft.\n\nIn 2021 the Air Show was held on the weekend of 28-29 August.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official site of the Kecskemét Air Show in 2013, in english\n Pictures from the 2005 Air Show\n\nAir shows\nTrade fairs in Hungary\nKecskemét"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.",
"what was the name of the show?",
"Animals of the Seashore,",
"what was the show about?",
"marine biology.",
"did the show perform well?",
"Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum",
"when did the show air?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
what is an interesting fact regarding the show?
| 6 |
What is an interesting fact regarding Dixy Lee Ray's KCTS-TV show?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus.
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| true |
[
"The Tamil Panar (or , ) were an ancient musical community of the Tamil area in India, attested from the classical Sangam texts onwards through medieval inscriptions. They sang their songs to the accompaniment of the yāl harp.\n\nIn fact medieval inscriptions present evidence for their performing Sanskrit drama and for singing and training temple dancers in hindu temples. As Palaniappan states therein: \"What is interesting about the traditional views regarding the social status of the Pāṇars is that they were not informed by any real data on the Pāṇars actually living in Tamil Nadu during medieval times. Such real data are indeed available to us from Tamil inscriptions, which present a drastically different picture of the social status of the Pāṇars\".\n\nNotable personages \n Tiru Nilakanta Yazhpanar (7th century CE)\n Thiruppaan Alvar (8–9th century CE)\n\nSee also \n Panar (Kundapura), a modern-day community of Karnataka\n\nReferences\n\nTamil history\nTamil",
"Twyman's law is the principle that \"the more unusual or interesting the data, the more likely they are to have been the result of an error of one kind or another\". It is named after the media and market researcher Tony Twyman and has been described as one of the most important laws of data analysis.\n\nThe law is based on the fact that errors in data measurement and analysis can lead to observed quantities that are wildly different from typical values. These errors are usually more common than real changes of similar magnitude in the underlying process being measured. For example, if an analyst at a software company notices that the number of users has doubled overnight, the most likely explanation is a bug in logging, rather than a true increase in users.\n\nThe law can also be extended to situations where the underlying data is influenced by unexpected factors that differ from what was intended to be measured. For example, when schools show unusually large improvements in test scores, subsequent investigation often reveals that those scores were driven by fraud.\n\nSee also\nZebra (medicine)\n\nReferences\n\nScientific method\nStatistical laws\nRazors (philosophy)\nData analysis\nPrinciples"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.",
"what was the name of the show?",
"Animals of the Seashore,",
"what was the show about?",
"marine biology.",
"did the show perform well?",
"Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum",
"when did the show air?",
"I don't know.",
"what is an interesting fact regarding the show?",
"helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus."
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
what event propelled her into the public eye?
| 7 |
What event propelled Dixy Lee Ray into the public eye?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
The show, Animals of the Seashore,
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| true |
[
"The Public Eye on Davos, held every year between 2000 and 2015, was a counter-event to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.\n\nThe project involved non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world and was coordinated by Swiss organizations Erklärung von Bern (EvB, renamed \"Public Eye\" in 2016) and Greenpeace Switzerland. The Public Eye is a platform for substantial criticism of \"purely profit-oriented globalization\". The focus of the Public Eye Awards since 2005 has been on corporate social responsibility. In 2009, the Positive category was for the first time awarded for a courageous employee for his or her exemplary contributions.\n\nHistory \nThe Public Eye was first hold in the year 2000 to accompany the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos critically. Together with the newspaper WOZ, they organized an event under the name ″Who rules the world″ and organized a public discussion with the president of the WEF, Klaus Schwab. In the following year, the Public Eye was extended to a multiple day counter-conference with 20 participants from NGOs and critical scientists. They also followed the WEF to New York in 2002, where the President of the Swiss Confederation, Kaspar Villiger, opened the conference.\n\nIn 2005, they introduced the Public Eye Awards as a renewal of the event, which was in future the main event of the Public Eye on Davos. In 2007, after Pro Natura stopped working on the event because the use of the event was too one-sited on the organizers of the WEF, Greenpeace was beside Erklärung von Bern the new organizing partner of the event. The Public Eye celebrated its ten-year anniversary on 28 January 2009. In 2015, Davos was for the last time the venue of the Public Eye Award with Chevron Corporation as winner of the lifetime award.\n\nLaureates\n\n2015 \nWinner of the Lifetime Award: Chevron Corporation\nChevron was 'awarded' namely for its activities of the past 10 years in Bolivia, that caused enormous ecological damage.\n\nAccording to Schweiz aktuell broadcast on 16 January 2015, a public presence during the WEF 2015 may not be guaranteed because the massively increased security in Davos. The Public Eye Award will be awarded for the last time in Davos: Public Eyes says Goodbye to Davos, confirmed by the Rolf Marugg (now Landrats politician), by not directly engaged politicians, and by the police responsible. As communicated before by Erklärung von Bern on 19 November 2014, following the announcement of the Lifetime Award winner on 23 January 2015, a closing conference will be held, with the participation of the Yes Men, Sven Giegold, the Attac co-founder and European Parliamentarian, and Adrian Monck as Managing Director and Head of Public Engagement of the WEF association, as well as Noreena Hertz, economy professor and best-selling author.\n\n2014 \n\nWinners: Gazprom, Gap\n\nIn December 2013, Gazprom became the first company in the world to start drilling for oil in the Arctic Barents Sea. Since the drilling began, the corporation has already violated several federal safety and environmental regulations. \nFashion giant Gap has refused to sign the binding agreement «Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh». Instead, it is actively undermining serious reform by promoting a non-binding corporate-controlled program.\n\n2013 \n\nWinners: People's Award: Shell, Jury Award: Goldman Sachs\n\nNominees were Coal India, G4S, Lonmin, and Repower\n\n2012 \n Winners: People's award: Vale, Jury award: Barclays\nNominees were Freeport, TEPCO, Samsung and Syngenta\n\n2011 \n Audience award: Neste Oil, Jury award: AngloGold Ashanti\nNominees were Axpo (a Swiss energy company), BP, Foxconn and Philip Morris\n\n2010 \n Winners: 2x Roche (Swiss, People), Royal Bank of Canada (Global), water mandate of UN Global Compact (Greenwash)\n\nThe Public Eye Award in the category Swiss and People was given to the Swiss health care-company for the selling of the drug Cellcept in China, where over 90% of the organs for transplantation comes from executed prisoners - against their own will.\n\nNominees: International Olympic Committee\n\n2009 \n Winners: 2x Newmont Mining Corporation (Global, People), BKW FMB Energie AG (Swiss)\n Positive Award: Freddy Lozano and Jairo Quiroz Delgado, executive members from the trade union Sintracarbon.\n\nNewmont received the 2009 award for its Akyem project in Ghana. According to the jury, it had destroyed unique natural habitats, carried out forced resettlement of local people and polluted soil and rivers. Newmont described the information as misleading and said the project had been extensively studied by international and national environmental experts, members of the local communities, and by the appropriate governmental agencies and departments.\n\nBWFK FMB Energie AG received the Swiss Award for their participation at German coal-burning power plants and the same time propagation of power efficiency and renewable energy in Switzerland.\n\nThe positive Award was given to two members of the union Sintracarbon in Colombia for their fight for better work conditions for the workers in the country's biggest coal mine (El Cerrejón).\n\n2008 \n\n Winners: 2x Areva (Global, People), Glencore (Swiss)\n Positive Award: Hess Natur\n\nBoth the People's Award and the Global Award were given to French state-owned Areva for the suppression of true health conditions of uranium mine workers at subsidiaries Somaïr and Cominak in northern Niger. Therefore, the hospitals would diagnose patients with HIV when they were actually displaying symptoms of cancer caused by radioactive contamination of air, water and soil. Glencore was \"honored\" for its opaque business practices and unacceptable labor rights in Colombian coal mines.\n\nThe Positive Award went to Hess Natur, Germany's largest mail-order house for natural fabrics, for its social and ecological involvement that stresses fair trade of its raw materials.\n\n2007 \n Winners: Bridgestone (Global), Novartis (Swiss)\n Positive Award: Coop (Switzerland)\n\nBridgestone received the Global Award for the disastrous working conditions at a subsidiary in Liberia. The workers lived in mud huts, the children were forced to work, and they had to handle highly toxic materials without protection. Novartis received the Swiss Award for the patenting of the cancer drug Imatinib, forcing a halt in production of Indian generics. As a result, ten thousand patients worldwide could no longer afford medication that slowed the spread of leukemia. The product from Novartis is ten times more expensive than the generics.\n\nCoop received the Positive Award for its dedication to ecological products and farming in Switzerland.\n\n2006 \n Winners: Chevron (Environment), citigroup (Taxes), The Walt Disney Company (Social)\n Positive Award: Euzkadi Union SNRTE, Germanwatch and FIAN\n\nFor 30 years, Chevron allowed highly toxic waste water to flow into the Amazon in Ecuador, and for cost-saving reasons it did not pump the waste water back into the earth, which was normal practice at the time. Chevron refuses to pay for the environmental consequences and the health problems of the local communities. Citigroup received its award for the unscrupulous advice it gave to tax evaders. Disney produces toys in China and does not disclose the names of the suppliers, thus protecting them from industry monitoring.\n\nThe Positive Award was given to the three organizations for their efforts against the unlawful closure of a Continental tire factory in Mexico, in which all of the organizations’ demands were met.\n\n2005 \n Winners: Dow (Human Rights), Shell (Environment), Wal-Mart (Labor Rights), KPMG (Taxes)\n\nDow received its award for the refusal to accept any responsibility for the 1984 catastrophe in Bhopal. Dow merged with the company responsible for the accident. Shell received its award for gas flaring in Nigeria in residential areas. Wal-Mart denies responsibility for working conditions at its suppliers. KPMG received its award for encouraging its clients to practice aggressive tax evasion.\n\nNotes and references\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n Public Eye (Erklärung von Bern)\n Greenpeace Switzerland\n Berne Declaration - Public Eye Awards by year\n\nGlobal policy organizations\nAnti-globalization organizations\nEconomy of Switzerland\nAward ceremonies\nBusiness and industry awards\nIronic and humorous awards",
"Hawk Eye (Ying-Yan or Yingyan, 鹰眼) is a series of Chinese UAVs including two models, Hawk Eye I and Hawk Eye II. Developed by Chengde Police Bureau (承德市公安局), both models have deployed in local counter narcotics operations.\n\nHawk Eye I\nHawk I is the first member of the Hawk Eye series with conventional layout, and propelled by a two-blade propeller driven by a pusher engine behind the wing. The entire aircraft can be rapidly assembled in the field in 28 seconds for fast deployment. Specification:\nWeight: 5.4 kg\nWingspan: 2 m\nMin speed: 32 km/h\nMax speed: 190 km/h\nEndurance: 1.5 h\n\nHawk Eye II\nHawk Eye II is the other member of the Hawk Eye series, and as with Hawk Eye I, it is also equipped with GPS, and can be remotely piloted for up to 30 km. The general dimension of Hawk Eye II is slightly larger than that of Hawk Eye I, but both still have conventional layout. However, Hawk Eye II is more conventional then Hawk Eye I in that it has a two-blade propeller driven by a tractor engine mounted in the nose.\n\nSee also\nList of unmanned aerial vehicles of the People's Republic of China\n\nReferences\n\nUnmanned aerial vehicles of China\nChengde"
] |
[
"Dixy Lee Ray",
"KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center",
"how was she involved with KCTS-TV?",
"producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.",
"what was the name of the show?",
"Animals of the Seashore,",
"what was the show about?",
"marine biology.",
"did the show perform well?",
"Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum",
"when did the show air?",
"I don't know.",
"what is an interesting fact regarding the show?",
"helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus.",
"what event propelled her into the public eye?",
"The show, Animals of the Seashore,"
] |
C_805cf2914f8b45fc956a04d29e2b6259_1
|
what did Ray think about the show?
| 8 |
What did Dixy Lee Ray think about her KCTS-TV show?
|
Dixy Lee Ray
|
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center. Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968: Her driving was infamous and my one ride with her, in a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck, was wholly memorable. Admittedly, it was an early Sunday morning, but sliding through stop signs, a few crosswise, was disconcerting at best. The ride went over the top when we reached the Science Center. The lot was full of cars without permits. Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth. Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in biology, Ray became an associate professor at the University of Washington in 1957. She was chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Under her guidance, the nearly bankrupt Pacific Science Center was transformed from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center, and returned to solvency.
In 1973, Ray was appointed chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by President Richard Nixon. Under her leadership, research and development were separated from safety programs, and Milton Shaw, the head of the powerful reactor development division, was removed. She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.
Ray ran for election as Governor of Washington as a Democrat in 1976. She won the election despite her blunt, sometimes confrontational, style. As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy. On April 3, 1980, she declared a state of emergency as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. She retired after losing her re-election bid for the Democratic nomination later that year.
Early life and education
Ray was born Marguerite Ray in Tacoma, Washington, to Frances Adams Ray and Alvis Marion Ray, the second in a family of five girls. She joined the Girl Scouts and, at the age of 12, became the youngest girl, up to that time, to summit Mount Rainier. In 1930, at age 16, she legally changed her name to "Dixy Lee"; as a child she had been referred to by family members as "little Dickens" (an idiom for "devil") and Dixy was a shortened form of the nickname. She chose "Lee" because of a family connection to Robert E. Lee.
Ray attended Tacoma's Stadium High School and graduated as valedictorian from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1937, working her way through school as a waitress and janitor. She went on to earn a master's degree in 1938. Her thesis was titled A Comparative Study of the Life Habits of Some Species of Burrowing Eumalacostraca. Ray spent the next four years teaching science in the Oakland Unified School District. In 1942 a John Switzer Fellowship allowed her to enter a doctoral program in biology at Stanford University. Ray's dissertation was The peripheral nervous system of Lampanyctus leucopsarus, a lanternfish. She completed the research for her dissertation in 1945 at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.
Scientific career
University of Washington
In 1945 Ray returned to Washington to accept a position as an instructor in the zoology department at the University of Washington. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech. In 1957 she was made an associate professor at the University of Washington. During her time there, she also served as chief scientist aboard the schooner SS Te Vega during the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Her reputation in the classroom swung between wild extremes; students either "loved her or loathed her" as did faculty members. One fellow professor reportedly described her as "an intemperate, feeble-minded old bitch."
KCTS-TV and Pacific Science Center
Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS affiliate, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology. The show, Animals of the Seashore, was a hit and helped propel her into the public eye beyond campus. Her growing popularity led to the Pacific Science Center extending an invitation to Ray to take over the nearly-bankrupt science museum for an annual salary of $20,000. Ray jumped at the opportunity and immediately began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the center, declaring "I'll be damned if I'm going to become a landlady to a hoary old museum." Under Ray's guidance, the Pacific Science Center was converted from a traditional, exhibit-oriented museum to an interactive learning center.
Ray's hands-on approach to running the Pacific Science Center reflected at every level. She kept a police whistle in her desk that she would use to run off loitering hippies. Jim Anderson, who would eventually teach fisheries science at the University of Washington, recalled a typical encounter with Ray, for whom he worked at the Pacific Science Center in 1968:
Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency. Her aggressive fundraising for the center also helped introduce her to many of the city's most influential citizens, including Senator Warren Magnuson.
Government
Atomic Energy Commission
An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Magnuson. The offer of appointment came via a telephone call after she was paged in an airport. After being told she would have to relocate to Washington, D.C., Ray declined the offer, saying "I'm living where I like to live." Nonetheless, she ultimately relented after being persuaded by her longtime friend Lou Guzzo.
Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia. Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her Scottish deerhound Ghillie, and a miniature poodle named Jacques. Media reports commented on her unusual hosiery (white knee socks).
Her personal quirks were widely perceived as a weakness by tenured bureaucrats. A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that,
However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded. In addition to its research responsibilities, the AEC was charged with the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the U.S. military. Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill."
During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975, Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
U.S. State Department
In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making. She subsequently told a United States Senate committee that she "saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger only once – the day she was sworn in as an assistant secretary of state." In a parting shot as she left D.C., Ray declared that "anything the private sector can do, the government can do it worse."
Governor of Washington (1977–1981)
Campaign and election
To the surprise of many, Ray announced in 1975 she would seek election as Governor of Washington. Later asked why she decided to make her first run for public office the highest office in the state, she would reason that "I was much too old to start at the bottom, so I decided to start at the top." Though previously politically unaffiliated, she declared herself a Democrat.
Ray displayed a blunt, sometimes confrontational, style on the campaign trail, for which she would later become known. During a visit with the Dorian Society, a Seattle gay rights group, she was asked by one member if she had met any gay federal employees and if they ever felt under pressure. Ray responded, "I don't know any – you can't tell by looking at them," drawing applause from attendees. In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.
Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class. Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%. On election night, asked by a reporter to explain her surprise victory, she offered, "it can't be because I'm so pretty?"
"the best governor … or the worst"
After assuming office, Ray tightened Washington state spending and began an audit of state salaries and programs. She balanced the state budget and during her tenure as Governor oversaw the state's first full funding for basic public education. As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.
Nonetheless, she quickly alienated fellow Democrats with her conservative views on energy and the environment. She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power. She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips." She filled their places with old colleagues, described by some as "yes men." Her treatment of the media was similarly dismissive. Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes."
Ray's uncompromising belief in the correctness of her views occasionally spilled over state lines. During what was supposed to be a routine joint press conference in Boise, Idaho, by the governors of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which the three touted the benefits of energy conservation, Ray reacted with barely concealed disdain to Oregon governor Robert W. Straub's call for legislation to encourage the installation of home insulation. "I don't believe our citizens are lax, or lazy, or indifferent," Ray fired. "In Washington we have a strong voluntary energy conservation program. We don't need legislative incentives."
Back in Washington, Ray sometimes engaged in elaborate ceremony; on her inauguration she hosted not just one but nine inaugural balls. To promulgate House Bill 491, a relatively minor $13 million appropriations measure, she had nearly 1,000 people assembled in the rotunda of the Legislative Building (the Associated Press noted, at the time, that it was ordinarily "unusual for more than a dozen people to show up" to bill signings, which would customarily be held in the governor's office).
Press and political opposition solidified in the face of her unyielding style of governance. In a critical 1977 article in Mother Jones, in which he labeled Ray as a "slightly wacky Miss Marple," Ray Mungo described the increasingly madcap atmosphere in Washington:
Ralph Nader, during a visit to the state, called Ray's administration "gubernatorial lunacy." Ray's own campaign manager, Blair Butterworth, vaguely quipped "we thought she would be the best governor Washington ever had, or the worst, and we were right." Support from her fellow scientists, however, was often positive; Edward Teller called Ray "a very wonderful lady" and said he would support her if she ran for President of the United States in the 1980 election.
State of emergency
On April 3, 1980, Ray declared a state of emergency as a result of the worsening threat of volcanic eruption posed by Mount St. Helens. Warning that "the possibility of a major eruption or mudflow is real", she urged a sometimes skeptical public to remain away from the mountain.
The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary. Ray ordered the Washington National Guard mobilized and the deployment of the Washington State Patrol to reinforce the sheriffs of Cowlitz County and Skamania County in carrying out her declaration, violation of which would be punishable by six months imprisonment. The red zone restrictions would later be credited by the U.S. Forest Service with saving between 5,000 and 30,000 people from certain death. At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public were generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted. (When the mountain finally erupted, 11 of those killed were loggers operating in the blue zone. A subsequent lawsuit by families of the deceased, alleging negligence against the state, would be summarily dismissed in court for lack of evidence.)
As a scientist, Ray was fascinated by the possibility of an eruption. In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt." The cataclysmic eruption of the mountain, which occurred on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people. The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.
Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott. She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes. McDermott himself went on to lose in the general election to Republican John D. Spellman.
Later life and death
After politics
After leaving office, Ray retired to her farm on Fox Island. She was frequently in the news giving her opinion of current events. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted her as saying she favored "abolishing political parties and taking away voting rights from anyone who fails to vote in two consecutive elections." During her retirement she co-authored two books with Lou Guzzo critical of the environmentalist movement. In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated … they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."
During a speech in Pasco, Washington, in 1991, she further denounced the growing number of scientists advancing theories of climate change by telling her audience to "beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle."
Death and legacy
Dixy Lee Ray died on January 2, 1994, at her home. Later, controversy erupted after it emerged employees of the Pierce County medical examiner's office had kept autopsy photos of Ray as souvenirs.
Ray's death was met with opinionated reflections on her life by her many friends and enemies. She was eulogized by her successor as governor, John Spellman, as "one of a kind." "She had a brilliant mind," Spellman said. "Her strength was as a teacher and a lecturer. She had this really bubbling personality. People weren't quite used to anybody that outspoken. But whatever she said, people still loved her."
Former state senator Gordon Walgren, who had been indicted on federal racketeering charges based on evidence collected by the State Patrol during Ray's term, recalled her in different tones. "I'm sure she made valuable contributions as an educator," Walgren noted. "I can't remember any as governor."
Ray's friend and a co-author in two of her books, Lou Guzzo, concluded that "she should have never gone into politics." "We thought it was time for someone in politics who tells the truth all the time," Guzzo recalled. "It didn't work."
In 2014, veteran Seattle journalist Knute Berger opined that Ray was ahead of her time. "It's interesting to note that many of her views are either mainstream or are creeping back into acceptability," Berger wrote.
After her death, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established an award in Dixy Lee Ray's honor for engineering contributions to the field of environmental protection. The award, which consists of a bronze medal with the governor's likeness and a cash grant, was first given to Clyde W. Frank in 1999 and has been made annually since.
Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.
Honors
1958: Clapp Award in Marine Biology
1973: Frances K. Hutchinson Medal for Service in Conservation
1973: United Nations Peace Medal
1974: Francis Boyer Science Award
1979: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Edward Teller at the Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah
Ray was the recipient of twenty honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities.
Sexual orientation
The subject of Dixy Lee Ray's sexual orientation was carefully avoided in public discussion both during, and after, her life. While there were many rumors regarding her sexuality, the specific word "lesbian" was never used to describe her and many people have dismissed those rumors as speculation born of Ray's tomboy characteristics and unmarried status, rather than informed assessment.
Electoral history
See also
List of female governors in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
Ray, Dixy Lee at HistoryLink
Register of the Dixy Lee Ray Papers, 1937–1982
|-
|-
|-
1914 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American zoologists
American marine biologists
Chairmen of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Washington (state)
Mills College alumni
Politicians from Tacoma, Washington
Stanford University alumni
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
University of Washington faculty
Washington (state) Democrats
Women in Washington (state) politics
Women state governors of the United States
People from Fox Island, Washington
American women academics
| false |
[
"Ray Hunt (August 31, 1929 – March 12, 2009) was an American horse trainer and clinician of significant influence in the natural horsemanship field. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.\n\nNatural horsemanship\nHunt is widely regarded as one of the original proponents of what became known as natural horsemanship. His views about horse-human relations were embraced by inspirational writers about human relations. Lance Secretan wrote that \"We may respect a leader, but the ones we love are servant-leaders.\" In the beginning, Hunt said,\"I was working in the mind of a lot of people who didnt want to believe the horse had a mind. Get a bigger bit. Get a bigger stick. That was their approach.\" \n\nRay Hunt is said to be Tom Dorrance's best-known student. They met around 1960, at a fair in Elko, Nevada. While Dorrance avoided media attention and clinics, by the mid 1970s Hunt was giving clinics far and wide. Ray Hunt is famous for starting each clinic with the statement \"I'm here for the horse, to help him get a better deal.\" He also liked to say \"make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy.\" His philosophy has been interpreted as \"If you get bucked off or kicked or bitten, you obviously did something wrong . . . The horse, on the other hand, is never wrong\".\n\nThe idea that \"the horse is never wrong\" is often misunderstood by people who think Ray was talking about the horse's behaviour, he was rather meaning the horse's reaction to human behaviour. The horse always interprets human actions in the moment, they don't think about the past or future in the way that people do. So, their reactions to what is happening in the moment is always pure, they reflect what the human did with the utmost integrity. If we want to change the horse, we should first change ourselves. As Ray said \"it's easy to change the horse, but it's hard to change the human\".\n\nRay Hunt was a mentor and teacher of Buck Brannaman.\n\nWorks\n1978 Think Harmony with Horses: An In-depth Study of Horse/man Relationship\n1992 Turning loose with Ray Hunt (video)\n1996 Colt starting with Ray Hunt (video)\n2001 The Fort Worth Benefit with Ray Hunt (video)\nBack To The Beginning (video)\nRay Hunt Appreciation Clinic: 2005 Western Horseman of the Year (video)\nRay Hunt: Cowboy Logic\n\nSee also\nTom and Bill Dorrance\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\nAmerican horse trainers\n1929 births\n2009 deaths",
"\"Lost and Found\" is the second track from Think Visual, a 1986 album by The Kinks. It was written by The Kinks' primary songwriter, Ray Davies.\n\nLyrics\n\nThe lyrics of \"Lost and Found\" were inspired by the recent Hurricane Gloria, which describe a New York City couple who lost each other when the hurricane was about to hit the area. \"We're near the eye of the storm,\" the singer sings. \"This is really heavy weather.\" However, just as \"the hurricane [was] crossing the coast line,\" the couple \"were lost and found, in the nick of time.\" The lovers say, \"we beat the fear, we came through the storm [and] now it all seems clear. We were lost and found, standing here looking at the new frontier\".\n\nRelease and reception\n\n\"Lost and Found\" was first released as the second song on the Think Visual album. However, the track was released as a standalone single in both Britain (the second single from Think Visual) and America (the third single from Think Visual). Although it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 or U.K. Singles Chart, it did reach #37 on the Mainstream Rock Chart in America, matching the peak of \"Rock 'n' Roll Cities\" (also from Think Visual) on the same chart.\n\n\"Lost and Found\", aside from its appearance on Think Visual, was featured in other albums as well. A live version of the song appeared on Live: The Road, and the studio version was featured as the title track of the 1991 compilation album, Lost & Found (1986-1989) (an album which covered the highlights of The Kinks' tenure with MCA.)\n\n\"Lost and Found\" has generally received positive reviews from music critics. Rolling Stone'''s David Wild described the track as \"a gorgeous ballad about a couple in New York City weathering their own storm as a hurricane sweeps across the coastline.\" Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic noted \"Lost and Found\" as a highlight from the Think Visual'' LP.\n\nMusic video\n\nOnce again, a video (starring The Kinks) was filmed to promote \"Lost and Found\". In the video, an orchestra performs the track with the members of The Kinks, as a film is displayed in the background. This video features Ray Davies in antique clothing. One of the instrument players catches the eye of Davies in this display, and enters the film to unite with him. Francine Brody is the woman cellist.\n\nReferences\n\nThe Kinks songs\n1987 singles\nSongs written by Ray Davies\nSong recordings produced by Ray Davies\n1986 songs\nMCA Records singles"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit"
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
What is Coolie injury?
| 1 |
What is Amitabh Bachchan's Coolie injury?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| true |
[
"Coolie is a historical term for indentured labourers and a contemporary racial slur.\n\nCoolie may also refer to:\n\n Coolie (dog breed), an Australian dog breed\n Coolie (1983 Hindi film), an Indian Bollywood film\n Coolie (1983 Malayalam film), a 1983 Malayalam language film\n Coolie (1995 film), a Tamil film\n Coolie (1997 film), a 1997 Bangladeshi Dhallywood action comedy film\n Coolie (2004 film), a Bengali action film\n Coolie (novel), a 1936 novel by Mulk Raj Anand\n The Coolies, a 1980s American alternative rock band from Atlanta, Georgia\n Coolie hat, British slang for an Asian conical hat\n\nSee also\n Coulee, a deep steep-sided ravine formed by erosion\n Coulis, a type of puréed sauce\n Kuli (disambiguation)\n Quli (disambiguation)",
"Chawalaleng is the Pilfers' second full-length album, and their first and only to be released on a major label. It was released on September 21, 1999 through Mojo Records.\n\nChawalaleng is a record that blends pop, metal, reggae, dub, hardcore, ska, and soul to create a musical genre that the band calls raggacore. The song \"Legal Shot Pam Pam\" was written by Coolie Ranx and originally recorded on The Toasters album Dub 56. The song \"Climbing\" was featured in MTV Sports: Skateboarding Featuring Andy MacDonald, released on the Sega Dreamcast.\n\nTrack listing\nAll lyrics written by Coolie Ranx & Vinnie Nobile.\n\n\"Agua\" – 3:22\n\"Lay\" – 3:16\n\"Climbing\" – 3:18\n\"Mr. Exploita\" – 2:51\n\"Choose Life\" – 2:59\n\"What's New (Here We Go Again) – 3:09\n\"Why\" – 3:39\n\"Hypnotized\" – 3:33\n\"Chawalaleng\" – 4:11\n\"Skungle\" – 2:33\n\"Saga\" – 3:56\n\"Legal Shot Pam Pam\" – 6:55\n\"P.C.\" – 4:36\n\"My Time Now\" – 5:07\n\nPersonnel\nCoolie Ranx - Lead Vocals\nVinny Nobile - Trombone, Vocals\nAnna Milat-Meyer - Bass guitar\nJames Blanck - drums\nNick Bacon - Guitar\n\n1999 debut albums\nPilfers albums"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood."
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
Did it affect his career?
| 2 |
Did Coolie injury affect Amitabh Bachchan career?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation.
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| true |
[
"The name Miriam has been used for eight tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.\n\nHurricane Miriam (1978), a Category 1 hurricane that threatened Hawaii but did not affect land.\nHurricane Miriam (1982), a Category 1 hurricane that did not affect land.\nTropical Storm Miriam (1988), continuation of Hurricane Joan which originally formed in the Atlantic Ocean and crossed into the Pacific.\nTropical Storm Miriam (1994), a short-lived storm that did not affect land.\nTropical Storm Miriam (2000), a short-lived storm that hit Baja California as a weak storm.\nTropical Storm Miriam (2006), a short-lived tropical storm that did not affect land.\nHurricane Miriam (2012), a Category 3 hurricane that did not affect land.\nHurricane Miriam (2018), a Category 2 hurricane that did not affect land.\n\nPacific hurricane disambiguation pages",
"The name Marcia has been used for four tropical cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere.\n Tropical Cyclone Marcia (1974), did not affect land\n Tropical Cyclone Marcia (1989), did not affect land\n Tropical Cyclone Marcia (2000), did not affect land\n Cyclone Marcia, one of the most intense tropical cyclones making landfall over Queensland, Australia\n\nAustralian region cyclone disambiguation pages"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.",
"Did it affect his career?",
"Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation."
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
How long was he out of filming?
| 3 |
How long was Amitabh Bachchan out of filming after Coolie injury?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
he resumed filming later that year
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| true |
[
"The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary is a non-fiction movie tie-in book by Jeff Kinney about the making of the 2010 movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which stars Zachary Gordon as Greg and Robert Capron as Rowley.\n\nBackground\nIt starts off with how the series was created. Next, it shows how they gradually prepared the movie for filming, such as choosing the cast, writing the script, and finding the right location.\n\nWhen it talks about filming, other subjects are woven within, especially the actors' downtime and designing props. It also has some reflections about the actors leaving before it talks about post-production. The book ends with the release of the film and a \"scrapbook.\"\n\nThe book was updated with behind the scenes info of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, each gaining short sections. A sequel for behind the scenes info of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul was published in 2017 as \"The Next Chapter\".\n\nSee also\n\n Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series)\n Diary of a Wimpy Kid (film)\n Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (film)\n Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (film)\n\nReferences\n\nDiary of a Wimpy Kid\n2010 non-fiction books\nBooks about film",
"Production of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 2010/2011 two-film finale of the Harry Potter film series, began in 2009. Both Part 1 and Part 2 were directed by David Yates, written by Steve Kloves, and form the screen adaptation of the 2007 novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The picture was produced by Rowling, alongside David Heyman and David Barron. It was originally set to be released as one, but due to its long-running time, Warner Bros. Pictures divided the film into two parts.\n\nBoth parts were shot simultaneously, principal photography began on and was completed on , with reshoots for the epilogue scene taking place in December 2010. Part 1 was released in 2D and IMAX on 19 November 2010, and Part 2 was released in 3D, 2D and IMAX on .\n\nDevelopment\nThe idea to divide J. K. Rowling's final book into two parts came from \"creative imperative\" and was suggested by executive producer Lionel Wigram. David Heyman initially responded negatively, but Wigram asked, \"No, David. How are we going to do it?\". Having reread the book and discussed it with Steve Kloves when the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike ended, and having Rowling's approval, he agreed with the division. Deathly Hallows was shot back to back, and treated as if it were one film during principal photography. Heyman said of the project, \"Over ten years ago, we made a commitment to Jo Rowling that, above all else, we would be faithful and true to the spirit of her books, and ever since we have endeavored never to compromise on the creative ambitions of the films.\"\n\nBefore David Yates was officially chosen to direct, others had expressed an interest in the job. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, had said that he would be tempted to return to direct. Guillermo del Toro, who passed on Prisoner of Azkaban, had expressed interest in directing Deathly Hallows, but an increased workload over the production of The Hobbit ruled him out of the project. Chris Columbus, director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, had longed to helm another instalment after just producing Prisoner of Azkaban and wished to return to direct Deathly Hallows, but Yates was chosen to direct it.\n\nFor the first time in the series, Rowling was credited as a film producer alongside David Heyman and David Barron, however David Yates noted that her participation in the filmmaking process did not change from the previous films. Heyman stated that the films are a closer recreation of the books than the previous films because of the length a two-part adaptation entails. Steve Kloves wrote the first part's script before starting his work on the second part in April 2009.\n\nDaniel Radcliffe said, \"This is a road movie, particularly in Part 1 of the film. People have been so used to seeing Harry Potter at Hogwarts and we're just not there for the first part of the film. That seems to have really freshened things up, and hopefully will get people seeing the films with fresh eyes again, because it's just a totally different look when you're not just sat in the same room the whole time.\" He also commented on the relationship between Harry and Voldemort in Part 2 saying that \"Voldemort does absolutely kick six bells out of me, and that's what makes it effective, the fact that Harry's a kid having the crap beaten out of him. If it's Voldemort killing an adult – well, he does that loads in the films. To see him brutalising and desperately trying to kill a 17-year-old boy is hopefully going to shake some people up.\"\n\nAs maintained by producer David Heyman and director David Yates, Part 1 and Part 2 were treated as one film during production, but are ultimately two different films with separate tones and styles, connected only by the \"linear narrative that runs through the middle\". Yates commented on the contrast between the two parts, saying that Part 1 is a \"road movie\" and \"quite real\", \"almost like a vérité documentary\", while Part 2 is \"much more operatic, colourful and fantasy-oriented\", a \"big opera with huge battles.\"\n\nYates and Heyman have noted that some of the events of the seventh book had an effect on the way the sixth film was written.\n\nFilming\n\nPre-production began on , while filming began on at Leavesden Studios, where the previous six instalments were filmed. Pinewood Studios became the second studio location for shooting the seventh film. Bruno Delbonnel, the director of photography of the sixth film, opted not to work on Deathly Hallows, as he was afraid of repeating himself. Eduardo Serra was brought on as director of photography for both Part 1 and Part 2. Director David Yates said that the films would be shot with \"loads of hand-held cameras.\" He stated, \"I want to shake things up every time I go into this world. I like experimenting as we go along.\" In October 2009, Ralph Fiennes started filming his role as Lord Voldemort. Many of the adult actors also prepared for filming during that period. The crew also shot on location, with Swinley Forest being the main outdoor filming area, along with the village of Lavenham in Suffolk and the streets of the city of London.\n\nFilming at Pinewood Studios was concluded on . However, Leavesden Studios was still occupied for further filming. Both Part 1 and Part 2 were filmed over a year and a half period throughout the UK, finishing on 12 June 2010. Even though the shooting schedule was set at 250 days, the filming took 478 days to complete. Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson all openly wept on the last day, which seemed to end their ten years of work on the films. However, reshoots were confirmed to begin in the winter of 2010 for the film's final scene, \"19 Years Later\", which originally took place in London at King's Cross station. The filming was completed in December 2010, marking the franchise's official closure of ten years of filming.\n\nDuring production at Leavesden, Radcliffe's stunt double David Holmes suffered a serious spinal injury during the filming of an aerial sequence, which left him paralysed. Holmes fell to the ground following an explosion which was part of the stunt.\n\nThe Deathly Hallows documentary\nDuring filming of Deathly Hallows, British filmmaker Morgan Matthews shot a documentary highlighting the filmmaking process and the lives of the cast and crew on set. Producer David Heyman said that \"[It] shows the challenges of making the film – the tolls it takes on the actors and crew. It's not just pure gloss and everybody's happy. It's real. At the same time, it's really, really funny.\" Matthews had access to various creative departments behind the scenes as well as on set filming.\n\nThe Golden Board\nThroughout the production of Deathly Hallows, the filmmakers formed a video which showed cast and crew members holding up a board which displayed how many days they were into production and how many days left until the end. Some of the footage included actor Robbie Coltrane playing air guitar, production staff waving goodbye and the final scene of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson. The last shot was of director David Yates \"getting into his car and driving away out of Leavesden\" as confirmed by David Heyman.\n\nReferences\n\n2009 in American cinema\n2010 in American cinema\nBritish films\nHarry Potter (film series)\nHarry Potter And The Deathly Hallows"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.",
"Did it affect his career?",
"Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation.",
"How long was he out of filming?",
"he resumed filming later that year"
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
What movie was he working on at the time?
| 4 |
What movie was Amitabh Bachchan working on at the injury time?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie.
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| false |
[
"Mahmoud Shokoko (; 1 May 1912 – 12 February 1985) was an Egyptian actor and artist. He is best known for his puppet character \"Aragouzsho\".\n\nEarly days \n\n“Mahmoud Shokoko\", whose real name is \"Mahmoud Ibrahim Ismail Musa\" (), was born on May 1, 1912. He began his working career as a carpenter with his father and remained working with him until the age of twenty-three.\n\nShokoko joined up with some acting troupes army on Irak that performed at the coffee shops facing his father’s workshop while he had free time. What initially began as a hobby turned into a passion, and “Shokoko” began performing at weddings as well as in other troupes such as \"Hassan 2 Al-Maghrabi\" and “Mohammed 6\". From there on he began to gain some notoriety around the world.\n\nThough he was illiterate, “Shokoko” was able to have a huge impact on the world of acting, and will always be remembered for his puppet character of “Aragouzsho\" who is still kept at the Music Institute and the Institute of Acting today.\n\nCareer highlights \n\nHis first movie, Al-Sabr Tayeb, was released on June 13, 1959 and brought him into the mainstream.\nHe was a subject of a Google doodle for Google Middle East on 1 May 2014.\n\nReferences \n\n1912 births\n1985 deaths\nEgyptian male film actors\n20th-century Egyptian male actors",
"Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies is an annual event that began in 2011. At the Meet-Up, concert videos and films of the rock band the Grateful Dead are shown in movie theaters at multiple locations. Each yearly screening occurs only once. The event provides a venue and opportunity for the band's fans, known as Deadheads, to gather in celebration and camaraderie.\n\nFrom 2011 to 2018, the Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies was shown at movie theaters throughout the United States, and was organized and managed by Fathom Events. The 2019 Meet-Up was shown internationally, with Trafalgar Releasing as the distribution partner.\n\n2011\nThe first Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies, on April 20, 2011, screened The Grateful Dead Movie in U.S. movie theaters. The Grateful Dead Movie is a music documentary that focuses on the band's October 16 to 20, 1974 performances at the Winterland Arena. It also includes interviews with the band members, and archival footage from earlier in their career. Shot on 35 mm film, it was co-directed by Jerry Garcia, and was originally released in theaters in 1977.\n\n2012\nThe 2012 event occurred on April 19 at 7:00 pm local time in selected movie theaters around the U.S., and aired the Grateful Dead's performance of July 18, 1989 at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre near East Troy, Wisconsin. This concert took place one day after the Alpine Valley show documented in the feature-length music video Downhill from Here, which was released in 1997.\n\n2013\nThe 2013 event occurred on August 1 and featured the music documentary film Sunshine Daydream in select U.S. movie theaters. Sunshine Daydream was shot at the concert performed on August 27, 1972 at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon, and includes extensive footage of the audience as well as the band. In 2013 the movie was re-edited and restored from the original 16 mm film negatives, and remastered to a high-definition digital projection for the screening. The audio was also completely remastered. The film was shown in about 450 movie theaters in the U.S. The following month, Sunshine Daydream was released on DVD and Blu-ray, packaged together with a 3-CD album of the complete Veneta concert.\n\n2014\nThe 2014 meet-up occurred on July 17 in movie theaters nationwide in the United States, and aired the Grateful Dead's performance of April 21, 1972 at the Beat Club television studio in Bremen, West Germany. The screenings began at 7:30 pm local time nationwide. The presentation was prepared from restored video from the original Beat Club broadcast and re-mastered audio from the original analog magnetic tapes. It also included a behind-the-scenes look at the production of an upcoming Grateful Dead release, with Bob Weir on guitar and vocals, and Jeffrey Norman performing mixing and mastering.\n\n2015\nGrateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies 2015 occurred on May 4, 2015, with the presentation of a previously unreleased video of the Grateful Dead concert performed at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre near East Troy, Wisconsin on July 19, 1989. The performance lasted approximately 160 minutes. This was the show performed the night after the one shown at the 2012 meet-up. The 2015 event took place in over 400 movie theaters in the United States. Screenings began nationwide at 7:00 pm local time. The concert was recorded in analog video format using multiple cameras, and the sound in movie theaters was in Dolby Stereo. Some of the content aired included additional content that was exclusive to the cinema presentations, which was previously unreleased. The concert was also aired on YouTube, but the additional exclusive content played only in cinema presentations was not included in the YouTube presentation.\n\n2016\nThe 2016 Meet-Up featured a previously unreleased video of the Grateful Dead concert performed on July 2, 1989 at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The concert was screened on May 11, 2016.\n\n2017\nThe Meet-Up for 2017 took place on August 1, the 75th anniversary of the birth of Jerry Garcia. It featured the Grateful Dead's performance of July 12, 1989 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.\n\nAlso in 2017, The Grateful Dead Movie was shown in theaters one time only, on April 20 (4/20). The screening was in honor of the 40th anniversary of that film, which was released in 1977. Also shown was a preview of the then-soon-to-be-released documentary film Long Strange Trip, and a short documentary about the concert recorded in the album Cornell 5/8/77.\n\n2018\nThe 2018 Meet-Up took place on August 1. The theatrical presentation was the July 7, 1989 Grateful Dead concert performed at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. The same concert was released in 2010 as the audio/video album Crimson White & Indigo.\n\n2019\nThe 2019 Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies was on August 1. It featured the band's June 17, 1991 concert at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. For the first time, the Meet-Up was shown internationally instead of just in the U.S., with Trafalgar Releasing replacing Fathom Events as the distribution partner. A recording of the same concert was released in the albums Giants Stadium 1987, 1989, 1991 and Saint of Circumstance. The former also includes the video of the show.\n\nSee also\n\n Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead – A series of five concerts in late June and early July 2015 that were simulcast in movie theaters in the United States, and also at concert venues, on pay-per-view services, YouTube and Sirius satellite radio\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \"Watch Grateful Dead Perform ‘Sugaree’ in Unreleased 1989 Video\". (Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies 2015). Radio.com.\n\nGrateful Dead"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.",
"Did it affect his career?",
"Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation.",
"How long was he out of filming?",
"he resumed filming later that year",
"What movie was he working on at the time?",
"starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie."
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
Where did he get the injury?
| 5 |
Where did Amitabh Bachchan get the injury?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
in the University Campus in Bangalore,
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| false |
[
"Sweaty Handshake was the debut compilation album by Irish rock band Pet Lamb. It was released 27 January 1995 through Roadrunner Records.\n\nIt is a compilation of two EPs released through Dublin based indie label Blunt Records – Paranoid from the Neck Down released 1 March 1993, and Spent released 5 January 1994. Two additional tracks recorded in 1994, 'All Time Low' and 'I Got Played', as well as additional instrumental segues at the end of tracks 6 and 12, are only available on this release.\n\n'Drop It' from the Paranoid from the Neck Down EP, and all tracks from the Spent EP, were remixed for this album. The spoken sample at the end of 'Never Rest Again' fades out on this release.\n\nThe album was released on LP, CD and Cassette. Initial copies of the LP included a 7\" featuring 'The Cleaver' and 'Bangkok', an Alex Chilton cover.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Never Rest Again\"\n\"Asshole Agony Aunt\"\n\"All Time Low\"\n\"Little Meaner\"\n\"Where Did Your Plan Go\"\n\"Black Mask\"\n\"Insult to Injury\"\n\"I Got Played\"\n\"Fun with Maggots\"\n\"Suck the Grain\"\n\"Drop It\"\n\"The Bastard\"\n\nParanoid from the Neck Down EP\n\"Little Meaner\"\n\"Where Did Your Plans Go\"\n\"Asshole Agony Aunt\"\n\"Never Rest Again\"\n\"Drop It\"\n\nSpent EP\n\"Insult to Injury\"\n\"Fun with Maggots\"\n\"Suck the Grain\"\n\"Black Mask\"\n\"The Bastard\"\n\nSingles\n\"Black Mask\" was released November 1994 on CD and 10\", with \"Get Your Socks Off\" and \"Cinders\".\n\"Where Did Your Plans Go\" was released 18 April 1995 on CD and 10\", with \"Bully Lover\" and \"Mutt Stamina\".\n\nPersonnel\n Brian Mooney – Vocals, Guitar\n Dylan Philips – Vocals, Guitar\n Kevin Talbot – Bass Guitar\n James Lillis – Drums\n\nReferences\n\n1995 compilation albums\nRoadrunner Records albums\nPet Lamb albums",
"The season began on November 15, 2010, new participants were introduced as some of the known cast did not return. Like the third and fourth season the system of the competition was in mixed couples. This season, in addition to the award of six million Chilean pesos, the winning couple will get a zero km car. On December 30, 2010 Valeria Ortega left Calle 7 to join Canal 7 (Chile) being replaced by Alain Soulat on Internet.\n\nContestants\n\nJuan Pablo Alfonso returns to competition due to Juan Pedro Verdier injury.\n\nJuan Pedro Verdier returns to competition due to Pierre Desarmes injury.\n\nTeams competition\n\nElimination order\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\n2010 Chilean television seasons\n2011 Chilean television seasons"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.",
"Did it affect his career?",
"Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation.",
"How long was he out of filming?",
"he resumed filming later that year",
"What movie was he working on at the time?",
"starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie.",
"Where did he get the injury?",
"in the University Campus in Bangalore,"
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
What was he doing at the University?
| 6 |
What was Amitabh Bachchan doing at the University?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
filming Coolie,
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| false |
[
"\"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" is a song written by Johnny Cunningham. It was recorded by American country music artist Lynn Anderson and released as a single in 1977 via Columbia Records, becoming a top 40 hit that year.\n\nBackground and release\n\"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" was recorded in April 1977 at the Columbia Studio, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The sessions was produced by Glenn Sutton, Anderson's longtime production collaborator at the label and her first husband. It was co-produced by Steve Gibson, making the session Anderson's first experience under the co-production of Gibson. Nine additional tracks were recorded at this particular session, including the major hit \"He Ain't You.\"\n\n\"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" was released as a single in May 1977 via Columbia Records. The song spent ten weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart before reaching number 22 in July 1977. The song was issued on Anderson's 1977 studio album I Love What Love Is Doing to Me/He Ain't You.\n\nTrack listings \n7\" vinyl single\n \"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" – 2:10\n \"Will I Ever Hear Those Churchbells Ring?\" – 3:32\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1977 singles\n1977 songs\nColumbia Records singles\nLynn Anderson songs\nSong recordings produced by Glenn Sutton",
"\"What She's Doing Now\" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music singer Garth Brooks. It was released in December 1991 as the third single from his album Ropin' the Wind. It spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. It was co-written by Pat Alger.\n\nContent\nThe song is a ballad about a man who wonders what his former lover is currently doing and what her whereabouts are (\"last I heard she had moved to Boulder\"). While the singer has no idea what she is doing now, he proclaims \"what she's doing now is tearing [him] apart\".\n\nBackground and production\nBrooks provided the following background information on the song in the CD booklet liner notes from The Hits:\n\n\"What She's Doing Now\" was an idea I had a long, long time about a man wondering what a woman was doing. And it was very simple. What is she doing now? Is she hanging out the clothes? Is she running a business? Is she a mother? Is she married? Who is she with? When I told the idea to Pat Alger, he looked at me with a smile and said, 'I wonder if she knows what she's doing now to me?' When I heard that, the bumps went over my arms and the back of my neck, and I knew that he had something. Crystal Gayle cut this song back in 1989. It came back to us for the Ropin' The Wind album. It is a song that has crossed all boundaries and borders around the world. This has made me extremely happy because the greatest gift a writer can ask for is to relate to someone. I can't help but think that this song might relate to a lot of people.\"\n\nOther versions\nWhile Garth Brooks penned the song, he was not the first person to release it. On the 1990 release Ain't Gonna Worry'', Crystal Gayle recorded the song as \"What He's Doing Now\"; her version was not released as a single.\n\nTrack listing\nEuropean CD single\nLiberty CDCL 656\n\"What She's Doing Now\"\n\"Shameless\"\n\"We Bury The Hatchet\"\nUS 7\" Jukebox single\nLiberty S7-57784\n\"What She's Doing Now\"\n\"Friends in Low Places\"\n\nChart positions\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1991 singles\nCrystal Gayle songs\nGarth Brooks songs\nSongs written by Pat Alger\nSongs written by Garth Brooks\nSong recordings produced by Allen Reynolds\nLiberty Records singles\n1991 songs"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.",
"Did it affect his career?",
"Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation.",
"How long was he out of filming?",
"he resumed filming later that year",
"What movie was he working on at the time?",
"starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie.",
"Where did he get the injury?",
"in the University Campus in Bangalore,",
"What was he doing at the University?",
"filming Coolie,"
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
How popular was the movie Coolie?
| 7 |
How popular was the Amitabh Bachchan movie Coolie?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| true |
[
"Indoribbean Pop is a fusion genre of music, combining American, Caribbean and East Indian musical elements. The term is a portmanteau of the words Indo and Caribbean, not be confused with Indo-Caribbean. The term was coined by the American writer, artist, singer, and movie producer known as Coolie Mac.\n\nReferences\n\nFusion music genres",
"Sinna Mapplai (), also spelt Chinna Mappillai, is a 1993 Indian Tamil-language comedy film directed and co-written by Santhana Bharathi. The film stars Prabhu and Sukanya, with Radha Ravi, Anand, Sivaranjani and Visu in supporting roles. It was released on 14 January 1993. This film ran over 175 days and declared as block buster. The film was remade in Telugu as Chinna Alludu (1993), in Kannada as Coolie Raja (1999) and twice in Hindi as Coolie No.1 (in 1995 and in 2020).\n\nPlot \nThangavel is a coolie in a bus stand and a bachelor too. One day, When he went to look a bride for him in someone's house, there he had been insulted as a small wage worker in a bus stand. On that day night, he comes feeling upset to notice the marriage broker who he had helped from the morons. There he started sharing about the bad experience he was neglected in bride's place, with the marriage broker Ambalavanan whom he met before in issue. While he explaining about the issue, later he knows that Ambalavanan was also insulted somewhere else by Periya pannai about bringing up the low status groom for his Elder daughter whose name is Janaki. He felt like the groom is not equal to the periya pannai's highest status. After that incident of being insulted, he is sitting with sad looks in a bus stand and also thinking about to make a strong lesson for the Periya pannai, particularly about his arrogance should be controlled. For the Consequences, Broker joins with Thangavel to make a plan like pretending as a rich man who returns back from Singapore and trying to marry Janaki with lots of lying, plus wants to break her father's arrogance and his money-minded fellow. Whereas, the days goes by, and the other day when Periya Pannai came to the bus stand and pick up the bus to visit his daughter in her house, there he get shocked of seeing his son in law who works as a coolie (Porter) takes others luggages, and caught up him in his eyes, later, he felt like he was deceived by his son in law and married his daughter. Since he had known everything about him, Thangavel get alerted and make a plan suddenly in himself with brilliantly trying to let others to believe someone is his younger brother whom the periya pannai met in bus stand. By reeling this drama, Everybody trusted his words gradually and rest of the story is How Thangavel is maintaining the lies in efficiently and overcomes from these issue and everything portrayed in comical ways until the end of movie part.\n\nCast \n Prabhu as Thangavel\n Sukanya as Janaki\n Radha Ravi as Aalavandhan / Periya Pannai\n Anand as Vinod\n Sivaranjani as Mythili\n Visu as Ambalavanan\n Vinu Chakravarthy as Vinod's father\n Venniradai Moorthy as an actor\n\nSoundtrack \nThe soundtrack was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, with lyrics written by Vaali, Gangai Amaran and Piraisoodan. The song \"Vennilavu Kothipathanu\" is set in Madhyamavati raga, and \"Kadhorum Lolakku\" is set in Natabhairavi.\n\nRelease and reception \nSinna Mapplai was released on 14 January 1993. The Indian Express wrote, \"[Sinna Mapplai] is a hilarious, racy comedy of the Wodehousian sort with engaging situations well directed by Santhana Bharathi\". At the 14th Cinema Express Awards, Crazy Mohan won the Best Dialogue Writer award.\n\nRemakes \nThe film was remade in Telugu as Chinna Alludu (1993), in Kannada as Coolie Raja (1999), and twice in Hindi with the title Coolie No. 1: in 1995 and in 2020.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990s Tamil-language films\n1993 films\nFilms directed by Santhana Bharathi\nFilms scored by Ilaiyaraaja\nFilms with screenplays by Crazy Mohan\nIndian comedy films\nIndian films\nTamil films remade in other languages"
] |
[
"Amitabh Bachchan",
"Coolie injury (1982-1983)Edit",
"What is Coolie injury?",
"the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood.",
"Did it affect his career?",
"Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation.",
"How long was he out of filming?",
"he resumed filming later that year",
"What movie was he working on at the time?",
"starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie.",
"Where did he get the injury?",
"in the University Campus in Bangalore,",
"What was he doing at the University?",
"filming Coolie,",
"How popular was the movie Coolie?",
"The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year."
] |
C_035bc1d0b6ed44e49143c657d1c7aff2_0
|
What was Coolie about?
| 8 |
What was Amitabh Bachchan movie Coolie about?
|
Amitabh Bachchan
|
In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan, and starred in the top-grossing film of that year, Coolie. Other releases during that year, namely Nastik, Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) were hits and Pukar was an average grosser. On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie, in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The overwhelming public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). CANNOTANSWER
|
Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end.
|
Amitabh Bachchan (; born Amitabh Srivastava; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s1980s, he was one of the most dominant actors in the Indian movie scene; the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry".
Bachchan was born in 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and his wife, the social activist Teji Bachchan. He was educated at Sherwood College, Nainital, and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His film career started in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's film Bhuvan Shome. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Hindi films. Referred to as the Shahenshah of Bollywood (in reference to his 1988 film Shahenshah), Sadi ka Mahanayak (Hindi for, "Greatest actor of the century"), Star of the Millennium, or Big B, he has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades, and has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award as lifetime achievement award and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 42 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of the game show franchise, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Knight of the Legion of honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. Bachchan also made an appearance in a Hollywood film, Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially UAE and Egypt), the United Kingdom, Russia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States.
Early life
Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh.
Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad (which translates into English as "Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Shrivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan was educated at Boys’ High School & College, Allahabad; Sherwood College, Nainital; and Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. When Bachchan finished his studies his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor "offered no encouragement". Bachchan then applied for a role as a newsreader for All India Radio, Delhi but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in the theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence in Amitabh Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career
Early career (1969–1972)
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome. His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film Saat Hindustani, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha.
Anand (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwana (1971). Following Parwana were several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, Sanjog (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to stardom (1973–1974)
Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits (as a lead in Bombay to Goa and supporting role in Anand). He was offered with a dual role movie by the director O.P Goyle, and writer O.P Ralhan for the film Bandhe Hath in 1973. This was Bachchan's first movie where he had played double role. Bachchan was soon discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of Zanjeer (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by a number of actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed soon discovered Bachchan and "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for Zanjeer". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
Zanjeer was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. The film was a huge success and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh Bachchan; Salim-Javed wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films, including blockbusters such as Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975). Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra.
Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. Bachchan's portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like Zanjeer, Deeewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar and Shakti resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase which became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in 1970s India.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only Zanjeer but also subsequent films such as Abhimaan, which was released only a month after their marriage and was also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting role in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and emotional hardship and was the top-earning film of 1974. Bachchan then played the leading role in the film Majboor. The film was a success at the box office.
Superstardom (1975–1988)
In 1975, he starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy Chupke Chupke and the crime drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. This was also the year in which Bachchan starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was Deewaar, directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh, and earned another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. The film became a major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number four. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The other, released on 15 August 1975, was Sholay, which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. Deewaar and Sholay are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with Zanjeer, and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared Sholay the "Film of the Millennium" and, like Deewar, it has been cited by Indiatimes Movies as amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic family drama Kabhie Kabhie. Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like Zanjeer and Deewar. The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year he played a double role in the hit Adalat as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony, in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.
He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade (1978) as Amit and Shankar and Don (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's Trishul and Prakash Mehra's Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases the same year, namely Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Trishul, Don, Kasme Vaade, Ganga Ki Saugandh and Besharam were massive successes, the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, remarkably releasing within a month of each other, a rare feat in Indian cinema.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in Suhaag which was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like Mr. Natwarlal, Kaala Patthar, The Great Gambler and Manzil. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top-grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and also Rekha. Other successful films of this period include Shaan (1980), Ram Balram (1980), Naseeb (1981), Lawaaris (1981), Kaalia (1981), Yaarana (1981), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981) and Shakti (1982), also starring Dilip Kumar.
In 1982, he played double roles in the musical Satte Pe Satta and action drama Desh Premee which succeeded at the box office along with mega hits like action comedy Namak Halaal, action drama Khud-Daar and the critically acclaimed drama Bemisal. In 1983, he played a triple role in Mahaan which was not as successful as his previous films. Other releases during that year included Nastik and Pukar which were hits and Andha Kanoon (in which he had an extended guest appearance) was an average grosser. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, his completed films Mard (1985) and Aakhree Raasta (1986) were released and were major hits. Bachchan had played a role in a special appearance for the movie Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara in the year 1987 and he sang a playback song with Kishore Kumar in this movie.
On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for Coolie, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie: Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success and the top-grossing film of that year.
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").
Career fluctuations and sabbatical (1988–1992)
After a three-year stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success. After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films like Jaadugar, Toofan and Main Azaad Hoon (all released in 1989) failed at the box office. He gained success during this period with the crime drama Aaj Ka Arjun (1990) and action crime drama Hum (1991), for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 cult film Agneepath. These years would see his last on-screen appearances for some time. After the release of the critically acclaimed epic Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of Insaniyat (1994), which was also a box office failure, Bachchan did not appear in any new releases for five years.
Business ventures and acting comeback (1996–1999)
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was Tere Mere Sapne, which was a moderate success and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and Major Saab (1998), and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence (2000–present)
In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Kaante (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).
His performance in Aks won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films: the romantic comedy Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer action drama Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was a success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear, co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.
Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Directed By Puri Jagannadh the film won positive reviews and was a commercial success.
In 2013 he made his Hollywood debut in The Great Gatsby making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel Bhoothnath Returns. The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father suffering from chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed Piku which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for The New York Times, "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects that Piku stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." The Guardian summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film Pink which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer suffering from bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. Like we know from Prakash Mehra movies, into each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for Hindustan Times, noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of The Times of India wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, 'Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines.' Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls’ struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the Sarkar film series: Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar 3. That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action adventure film Thugs Of Hindostan with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in 102 Not Out, a comedy-drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of twenty-seven years. In October 2017, it was announced that Bachchan will appear in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra, alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy and Alia Bhatt. He is set to make his debut in Telugu cinema in Project K directed by Nag Ashwin alongside Deepika Padukone and Prabhas.
Famous Dialogues of Movies
Amitabh bacchan's dialogues are famous amongst Indian public. Some of the dialogues are:
1) Don ka intezar to gyarah mulko ki police kar rahi hai.
2) Rishtey me to hum tumharey baap hotey hai, naam hai Shehanshah.
3) Vijay dina nath chohan, poora naam, baap ka naam dina nath chohan.
4) Tum log mujhe dhoondh rahey ho, aur me tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon.
5) Me aaj bhi pheke huie pase nahi uthata.
Other work
Politics
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.
Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements were questioned in courts.
Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.
Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Television appearances
In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006.
In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss.
In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of KBC. The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The Show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. Bachchan continued to host KBC till 2021.
The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far.
In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled Yudh playing the lead role of a businessman battling both his personal and professional life.
Voice-acting
Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film Lagaan.
He also has done voice-over work for the following movies:
Bhuvan Shome (1969)
Bawarchi (1972)
Balika Badhu (1975)
Tere Mere Sapne (1996)
Hello Brother (1999)
Lagaan (2001)
Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century (2003)
Parineeta (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005), Indian version
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Swami (2007)
Zor Lagaa Ke...Haiya! (2009)
Ra.One (2011)
Kahaani (2012)
Krrish 3 (2013)
Mahabharat (2013)
Kochadaiiyaan (Hindi Version) (2014)
CBI documentary (2014) - sanctioned by Central Bureau of Investigation
The Ghazi Attack (2017)
Firangi (2017)
Humanitarian causes
Bachchan has been involved with many social causes. For example, he donated to clear the debts of nearly 40 beleaguered farmers in Andhra Pradesh and to clear the debts of some 100 Vidarbha farmers. In 2010, he donated to Resul Pookutty's foundation for a medical centre at Kochi, and he has given () to the family of Delhi policeman Subhash Chand Tomar who died after succumbing to injuries during a protest against gang-rape after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He founded the Harivansh Rai Bachchan Memorial Trust, named after his father, in 2013. This trust, in association with Urja Foundation, will be powering 3,000 homes in India with electricity through solar energy. In June 2019 he cleared debts of 2100 farmers from Bihar.
Bachchan was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the polio Eradication Campaign in India in 2002. In 2013, he and his family donated () to a charitable trust, Plan India, that works for the betterment of young girls in India. He also donated () to the Maharashtra Police Welfare Fund in 2013.
Bachchan was the face of the 'Save Our Tigers' campaign that promoted the importance of tiger conservation in India. He supported the campaign by PETA in India to free Sunder, a 14-year-old elephant who was chained and tortured in a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
In 2014, it was announced that he had recorded his voice and lent his image to the Hindi and English language versions of the TeachAids software, an international HIV/AIDS prevention education tool developed at Stanford University. He has been a vocal "brand ambassador" of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and featured in a few advertisements to promote the campaign.
In 2020, Bachchan was helping the Government of India promote its public health message concerning COVID-19 before he and some members of his family themselves became infected. He was hospitalised with reported mild symptoms of the disease on 11 July. He was discharged from hospital on 2 August.
Business investments
Bachchan has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud based content distribution platform.
Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Personal life
Bachchan has been married to veteran actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri in 1973 and together they have two children; Abhishek, an actor, and Shweta, an author, journalist and former model. Abhishek married actress Aishwarya Rai, and they have a daughter. Amitabha's family lives in Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Shweta Nanda is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda who is a part of the Kapoor family of Bollywood. They have two children.
Filmography
Awards, honours and legacy
Apart from industry awards won for his performances throughout the years, Bachchan has received several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millennium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ... [but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been modelled in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed in New York in 2009, Hong Kong in 2011, Bangkok in 2011, Washington, DC in 2012, and Delhi, in 2017.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. The then-President of Afghanistan awarded him the Order of Afghanistan in 1991 following the shooting of Khuda Gawah there. The Government of Madhya Pradesh honoured him with Rashtriya Kishore Kumar Samman for 2002–2003. France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
In the early 80s, Bachchan authorised the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a series titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan. In May 2014, La Trobe University in Australia named a Scholarship after Bachchan.
He was named "Hottest Vegetarian" by PETA India in 2012. He won the title of "Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian" in a contest poll run by PETA Asia.
In Allahabad, the Amitabh Bachchan Sports Complex and Amitabh Bachchan Road are named after him. A government senior secondary school in Saifai, Etawah is called Amitabh Bachchan Government Inter College. There is a waterfall in Sikkim known as Amitabh Bachchan Falls.
Autobiography
Bachchan himself wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for You and Me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
Biographies
Several books have been written about Bachchan. The following is the listing of books focused on his life career:
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
AB: The Legend (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
See also
List of Bollywood actors
Lists of Indian actors
References
Further reading
External links
1942 births
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Mumbai
Indian actor-politicians
Indian amateur radio operators
Indian male film actors
Hindi film producers
Indian male singers
Bollywood playback singers
Indian television presenters
Indian male voice actors
Living people
Best Actor National Film Award winners
Male actors from Allahabad
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
8th Lok Sabha members
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts
Indian male playback singers
People named in the Panama Papers
Film producers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
21st-century Indian male actors
Male actors in Hindi television
Indian male television actors
Politicians from Allahabad
Film producers from Uttar Pradesh
People from New Alipore
Filmfare Awards winners
Indian Hindus
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Actors from Mumbai
People named in the Paradise Papers
Actors from Maharashtra
| false |
[
"Chawalaleng is the Pilfers' second full-length album, and their first and only to be released on a major label. It was released on September 21, 1999 through Mojo Records.\n\nChawalaleng is a record that blends pop, metal, reggae, dub, hardcore, ska, and soul to create a musical genre that the band calls raggacore. The song \"Legal Shot Pam Pam\" was written by Coolie Ranx and originally recorded on The Toasters album Dub 56. The song \"Climbing\" was featured in MTV Sports: Skateboarding Featuring Andy MacDonald, released on the Sega Dreamcast.\n\nTrack listing\nAll lyrics written by Coolie Ranx & Vinnie Nobile.\n\n\"Agua\" – 3:22\n\"Lay\" – 3:16\n\"Climbing\" – 3:18\n\"Mr. Exploita\" – 2:51\n\"Choose Life\" – 2:59\n\"What's New (Here We Go Again) – 3:09\n\"Why\" – 3:39\n\"Hypnotized\" – 3:33\n\"Chawalaleng\" – 4:11\n\"Skungle\" – 2:33\n\"Saga\" – 3:56\n\"Legal Shot Pam Pam\" – 6:55\n\"P.C.\" – 4:36\n\"My Time Now\" – 5:07\n\nPersonnel\nCoolie Ranx - Lead Vocals\nVinny Nobile - Trombone, Vocals\nAnna Milat-Meyer - Bass guitar\nJames Blanck - drums\nNick Bacon - Guitar\n\n1999 debut albums\nPilfers albums",
"The Coolie-Begar or Coolie- Utar movement was a non-violent movement by the general public of Kumaun in the Bageshwar town of United Provinces in 1921. This movement was led by Hargovind Pant and Badri Datt Pandey, who were awarded the titles of 'Jannayak' and 'Kumaon Kesari' respectively after the success of this movement. The aim of this movement was to put pressure on the British to end the practice of Coolie-Begar. Mahatma Gandhi, while praising the movement, named it 'Bloodless Revolution'.\n\nIntroduction and reasons\n‘Coolie Begar’ or ' Coolie-Utar' referred to the law requiring locals of the hill regions of Kumaun to provide free transportation for the luggage of travelling British officials. It was the responsibility of the 'Village Head' of different villages, to make available a certain number of coolies for a certain period. For this work, there was a regular register, in which the names of all the villagers were written and everyone was forced to do this work alternately.\n\nThe dissatisfaction between the public, due to the collusion of the Village Heads, the landlords and the patwaris, and the discrimination between the people increased as the head and patwari of the village started promoting this virtue to get rid of their personal interests. Sometimes, people were also forced to do extremely disgusting things. Such as picking up garbage or washing clothes for the British etc. The locals were being exploited by the British physically and mentally. Eventually, people started to unite to protest against this.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Chand rulers, during their reign, initiated a tax related to horses in the state. It was possibly the earliest form of the 'Coolie Begar' exploitation. This practice took a widespread form of governance under the rule of Gorkhas. Though the British ended it initially, they gradually not only re-enforced this system, but brought it to its formidable form. Earlier this was not on the general public, but on those salaried farmers who used to collect tax from the landowners or collectors. Hence, this practice directly influenced those tenants who owned land. But the reality was that these rich landlords and jurists had imposed their parts of slavery on landless farmers, laborers and weak sections of society who accepted it as conditional remuneration. Thus, this practice continued, despite the opposition of local people.\n\nBackground\n\nDuring the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Haldwani, that was the gateway to the Kumaon area, was seized by the rebels of Rohilkhand. Though the British succeeded in crushing the rebellion in its infancy itself, the tension of suppression of that time sporadically flared into different forms of resistance from time to time. There was also a dissatisfaction with the British's exploitation of the forests of Kumaon.\n\nCoolie Begar was made mandatory for the residents of Kumaon division in 1913. It was opposed everywhere; Badri Datt Pandey led the movement in Almora, while other leaders like Anusuya Prasad Bahuguna and Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant also played an active role in the Movement in Garhwal and Kashipur respectively. Through his Almora Akhbar, Badri Datt Pandey started protesting against this evil. In 1920, the annual Convention of the Congress was held in Nagpur. several leaders including Pt Govind Ballabh Pant, Badri Datt Pandey, Hargovind Pant, Victor Mohan Joshi, Shyam Lal Shah etc. attended the session, to take the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi for the Coolie Begar movement. When they came back, they started raising awareness against this evil.\n\nMovement\n\nOn 14 January 1921, on occasion of the Uttarayani fair, this movement was initiated from the grounds of Confluence (Bagad) of Saryu and Gomati. Before the commencement of this movement, a notice was issued by the District Magistrate to Hargovind Pant, Lala Chiranjilal and Badri Datt Pandey, but it had no effect on them. To participate in this movement, people from different villages came out to the fair ground, and turned it into a huge show. The people first went to the Bagnath Temple to offer prayers, and then about 40 Thousand people went to Saryu Bagad, in front of the procession carrying a flag, with the words \"End the Coolie Begar\". After that, there was a meeting in Saryu Ground, Badri Datt Pandey, while addressing the gathering, took an oath saying, \"Taking the water of the sacred Saryu, and with the Bagnath temple as a witness, we pledge that we will not tolerate 'Coolie Utar', 'Coolie Begar' and 'Coolie Burdayash' any more.\" All the people took this oath and the Village heads who had brought the 'record registers' with them, flung these registers into the confluence while raising slogans in praise of Bharat Mata.\n\nThe then deputy commissioner of Almora district was also present in the crowd. Though he wanted to open fire on the crowd, he had to step back due to the lack of police force.\n\nAftermath\n\nAfter the success of this movement, people gave the title of 'Jannayak' to Hargovind Pant and that of 'Kumaon Kesari' to Badri Datt Pandey. People not only supported the movement but also strictly followed it and continued to protest against this practice. The result was that the government was forced to end the tradition by bringing a bill in the House. Mahatma Gandhi was very impressed with this movement and paid a visit to Bageshwar and Kausani himself in 1929. He also established a Gandhi Ashram in Chanunda. After this, Gandhiji wrote about this movement in Young India stating \"its effect was complete, it was a bloodless revolution.\"\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nIndian independence movement\nBageshwar\nHistory of Uttarakhand"
] |
[
"Good King Wenceslas",
"Source legend"
] |
C_716ecc184e1b46299526e3451ae4328c_1
|
Who is the story based on?
| 1 |
Who is the story based on?
|
Good King Wenceslas
|
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"--that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor. Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from 12th century says: But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God's churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched. Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving. Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later. CANNOTANSWER
|
Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king
|
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). The name Wenceslas is a Latinised version of Old Czech "Venceslav".
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year. Neale's lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones.
Source legend
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from the 12th century wrote:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (962–973) posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
Authorship
Tempus adest floridum
The tune is that of "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come"), a 13th-century spring carol in 76 76 Doubled Trochaic metre, first published in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jacobus Finno, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the "game of Venus" (goddess of love) in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts. The tune has also been used for the Christmas hymn Mary Gently Laid Her Child, by Joseph S. Cook (1859–1933); GIA's hymnal, Worship uses "Tempus Adest Floridum" only for Cook's hymn.
Neale's carol
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, the British envoy and minister in Stockholm, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to Neale, who was Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, Sussex and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore (Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea).
The book was entirely unknown in England at that time. As a member of the Tractarian Oxford Movement, Neale was interested in restoring Catholic ceremony, saints days and music back into the Anglican church. The gift from G. J. R. Gordon gave him the opportunity to use medieval Catholic melodies for Anglican hymn writing.
In 1849 he had published Deeds of Faith: Stories for Children from Church History which recounted legends from Christian tradition in Romantic prose. One of the chapters told the legend of St Wenceslas and his footsteps melting the snow for his page:
"My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."
"Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this ?"
Otto answered not.
"Follow me on still," said S. Wenceslaus. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."
The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.
For his 1853 publication Carols for Christmas-tide he adapted his earlier prose story into a poem, and together with the music editor Thomas Helmore added the words to the melody in Piae Cantiones, adding a reference to Saint Stephen's Day (26 December), making it suitable for performance on that Saint's Day.
The hymn's lyrics take the form of five eight-line stanzas in four-stress lines. Each stanza has an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. Lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 end in single-syllable (so-called masculine) rhymes, and lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 with two-syllable ("feminine") rhymes. (In the English tradition, two-syllable rhymes are generally associated with light or comic verse, which may be part of the reason some critics have demeaned Neale's lyrics as "doggerel".)
In the music the two-syllable rhymes in lines 2, 4, and 6 (e.g. "Stephen/even", "cruel/fuel") are set to two half-notes (British "minims"), but the final rhyme of each stanza (line 8) is spread over two full measures, the first syllable as two half-notes and the second as a whole note ("semi-breve")—so "fuel" is set as "fu-" with two half-notes and "-el" with a whole-note. Thus, unusually, the final musical line differs from all the others in having not two but three measures of 4/4 time.
Some academics are critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
Why, for instance, do we tolerate such impositions as "Good King Wenceslas?" The original was and is an Easter Hymn...it is marked in carol books as "traditional", a delightful word which often conceals ignorance. There is nothing traditional in it as a carol.
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol...Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting...not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.
Elizabeth Poston, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to say how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner it "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words". A similar development has occurred with the song O Christmas Tree, whose tune has been used for Maryland, My Maryland, The Red Flag, and other unrelated songs.
By contrast, Brian Scott, quoting from The Oxford Book of Carols its criticism and hope that the carol would "pass into disuse", says "Thankfully, they were wrong", for the carol "still reminds us that the giving spirit of Christmas should not happen just on that day..." Jeremy Summerly and Nicolas Bell of the British Museum also strongly rebut Dearmer's 20th century criticism, noting "it could have been awful, but it isn't, it's magical...you remember it because the verse just works".
Textual comparison
Other versions
William Lloyd Webber included Good King Wenceslas as one of his Songs without Words.
The Beatles' 1963 Christmas Record featured several renditions of the carol.
In 1984, Mannheim Steamroller recorded an electronic synthesizer arrangement of the carol for their first Christmas album.
The song's tune was re-worked by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their track "Christmas Jazz", from their 2004 CD The Lost Christmas Eve.
It was covered by English folk duo Blackmore's Night on their 2006 album Winter Carols.
It was covered by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt on her 1995 EP A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season, and reissued on her 2008 album A Midwinter Night's Dream.
In 2013, The Piano Guys made a piano-cello instrumental cover of this song for A Family Christmas, their Christmas studio album.
Mel Tormé covered the song on his 1992 Christmas Songs album.
Child Bite covered the song in their 2018 anthology Burnt Offerings.
Tenth Avenue North opened their 2017 Christmas album, Decade The Halls, with the song, setting it to 1920s era music.
Rob Halford, vocalist of metal band Judas Priest, covered the song on his 2019 Christmas album, Celestial.
The song is included on We Three Kings (The Roches album), the sixth studio album by the folk trio The Roches, released in 1990 on MCA Records.
The song is included in Relient K's Christmas Album Let it Snow...Let it Reindeer under the title, "Good King Wenceslas"
In popular culture
Walt Kelly's Pogo cartoon strip spoofs the song as "Good King Sauerkraut" and "Good King Winkelhoff".
In the film Love Actually, Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) sings the carol at the home of three small girls to explain his presence there while he is knocking on doors randomly searching for his love interest.
In the British show Miranda, Penny plays the song on the piano with altered lyrics.
In the Scottish film Filth, Dr Rossi sings the song with altered lyrics.
Two Doctor Who episodes have referenced the song. In the first episode of the 1975 series "Genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry find themselves in the middle of a minefield on the Dalek home planet Skaro. The Doctor turns to them and says, "Follow me and tread in my footsteps." Sarah Jane looks at Harry and remarks, "Good King Wenceslas." In the 2007 Christmas special entitled "Voyage of the Damned", an alien tour guide on board an alien spaceship replica of the Titanic mistakenly believes that Good King Wenceslas is the current monarch of the United Kingdom while explaining Earth's history.
In the television special A Muppet Family Christmas, Gonzo sings this song.
In the 1987 film Dragnet, LAPD Detective Pep Streebeck closes his eyes and starts singing this song during a high-speed chase when told to "think about Christmas" by his partner, Detective Joe Friday.
In Telltale's story driven videogame ""The Walking Dead: Season Two"" the character Sarita sings the carol in the second episode titled "A House Divided". Sarita talks about the meaning of the song with a young girl named Sarah as they decorate a massive christmas tree in the ski lodge.
In the movie The Muppet Christmas Carol, Bean Bunny sings this song to Scrooge. An instrumental rendition of the song is also played during the opening credits.
In the Discworld book Hogfather, the carol is slightly 'twisted' during a scene when Death, while acting as the Hogfather, encounters a king trying to give a beggar his feast as an act of charity, with Death criticizing the king's actions as simply wanting to be praised on Hogswatch night as he has never shown any concern for the beggar before nor will so in the future, forcing the king out and leaving the beggar with plainer food that is nevertheless more to his liking.
Buford and Baljeet sing this song with altered lyrics in A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas.
The song is begun by guests of The Simpsons in "White Christmas Blues". Marge, who doesn't like second verses of Christmas carols, remarks this one creeps her out from the beginning and leaves the room to listen to a blender.
In the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, the song is played by the Salvation Army Band outside of Higbee's Department Store.
In The Polar Express, the song is played briefly in one scene where the Polar Express passes the Herpolsheimer's store and in another scene, where the hobo sings it while playing the hurdy-gurdy.
The setting of Gene Wolfe's novel The Devil in a Forest is based on the second verse of the carol, which is given as the epigraph to the book.
The 1987 BBC radio play Crisp and Even Brightly, by Alick Rowe, is a comedic re-telling of the story in the carol, starring Timothy West as Wenceslas, and featuring a page called Mark and other characters not found in the carol.
On the Will & Grace season 6 episode "All About Christmas Eve", Karen sings the song with both Jack and Will to a bellman at her suite at the Palace Hotel.
On the Big Bang Theory episode "The Santa Simulation", Sheldon sings the song while playing Dungeons & Dragons with Leonard, Howard and Stuart, so that his character in the game can avoid danger. Sheldon insists on singing the entire song, even though he only needs to sing the first verse to complete his task.
In a blooper reel of the fourth season of TV series Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) start singing and dancing to the carol when entering the throne room during Tyrion's trial.
In an episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert sings the song with Michael Stipe and Mandy Patinkin.
In the Porridge Christmas Special, "No Way Out", Norman Stanley Fletcher and his fellow inmates sing the carol - until they are hushed by Mr. Mackay. In place of "When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel" comes: "When a Scotsman came in sight hollerin’...".
Comedian John Finnemore wrote a sketch for his Souvenir Programme based on the carol, in which the poor man criticises King Wenceslas for bringing unnecessary fuel and flesh, and for making his page carry them in the cold weather.
In an episode of Hogan's Heroes, several of the POWs loudly and repeatedly rehearse the song in order to distract the guards from the covert activities of the rest of the team.
At the ironic ending of Frederik Pohl's Science Fiction novel Jem, human colonists on a faraway planet developed the habit of celebrating Christmas by taking off their clothes and engaging in a wild orgy, their copulations accompanied by a chorus of the planet's enslaved indigenous beings singing "Good King Wenceslas", whose Christian significance was long forgotten.
The song was parodied by the British children's television programme, Horrible Histories. In this version, carol singers attempt to give a more historically accurate portrayal of the king, including a line about his murder.
The song is parodied by Peter Shickele (aka PDQ Bach) as "Good King Kong," though the melody quickly diverges from the original.
References
Literature
Scott, Brian (2015). But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them, Anderson,
External links
Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion. org
Gumpoldus Mantuanus Episcopus [0967-0985]: Vita Vencezlavi Ducis Bohemiae. 'The Life of King Wenceslas' Latin text by Migne Patrologia Latina, Vol. 135, col. 0919 - 0942C.
Christmas carols
Songs about kings
Songs about celebrities
Piae Cantiones
1853 songs
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Cultural depictions of Czech men
Cultural depictions of kings
| false |
[
"Wolves Cry Under the Moon is a 1997 Taiwanese road movie directed by Ho Ping, written by Kuo Cheng and Ho Ping. The story is based on 4 short stories by Kuo Cheng.\n\nPlot \nThe overall story is based on Kuo Cheng's 1993 short story \"Highway Closing\" (國道封閉, also the film's Chinese title).\n\nSub-plot 1: \"The Journey of the Wolf\" \nBased on Kuo Cheng's 1991 short story \"The Journey of the Wolf\" (狼行千里), which has been translated into English by Susan Wilf.\n Tou Chung-hua\n Ku Pao-ming\n\nSub-plot 2: \"Driving on the Road\" \nBased on Kuo Cheng's 1988 short story \"Driving on the Road\" (開車上路).\n Chang Shih\n Yue Hong\n\nSub-plot 3: \"The Heart Thief\" \nBased on Kuo Cheng's 1997 short story \"The Heart Thief\" (偷心賊).\n Annie Yi\n Jerry Huang (voice)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1997 films\nTaiwanese films\n1997 drama films\nFilms with screenplays by Kuo Cheng\nTaiwanese drama films\nFilms directed by Ho Ping",
"This is a list of songs that retell, in whole or in part, a work of literature. Albums listed here consist entirely of songs retelling a work of literature.\n\nAlbums\n An Alien Heat by Spirits Burning and Michael Moorcock is a concept album that retells An Alien Heat by Michael Moorcock.\n The Black Halo by Kamelot is a concept album inspired by Goethe's Faust.\n Epica by Kamelot is a concept album inspired by Goethe's Faust.\n The Hollow Lands by Spirits Burning and Michael Moorcock is a concept album that retells The Hollow Lands by Michael Moorcock.\n The House of Atreus Act I and The House of Atreus Act II form a two-part concept album by Virgin Steele based loosely on the Oresteia of Aeschylus.\nJeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne is a concept album that retells the story of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.\n I Robot is an LP by The Alan Parsons Project that was inspired by the Isaac Asimov short story collection I, Robot.\nJourney to the Centre of the Earth by Rick Wakeman is an LP which retells Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne.\n Leviathan is a concept album by Mastodon which contains songs about Herman Melville's Moby Dick.\n La Leyenda de la Mancha is a Mägo de Oz album based on Don Quixote.\n Mack Avenue Skullgame by Big Chief is an album on Sub Pop based on the book Masquerade by Lowell Cauffiel.\n Nightfall in Middle-Earth is an album by Blind Guardian that retells Tolkien's The Silmarillion.\n The album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son by Iron Maiden is based on Orson Scott Card's novel Seventh Son.\nThe album Shakespeare's Macbeth – A Tragedy in Steel by Rebellion is based Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth.\n The album Smallcreeps's Day by Mike Rutherford is based upon the novel of the same name by Peter Currell Brown.\nThe Songs of Distant Earth by Mike Oldfield is based on the novel The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke.\n Tales of Mystery and Imagination is an LP by The Alan Parsons Project which retells several Edgar Allan Poe stories.\n\nSongs\n\n0–9 \n \"1984\" by David Bowie is one of several songs he wrote about George Orwell's novel 1984; Bowie also hoped to produce a televised musical based on the book.\n \"20 000 ljööd vee all\" by Vennaskond is about Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.\n The song \"2112\" by Rush shares many themes with the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand, such that Neil Peart recognized Rand in the album's liner notes.\n \"40\" by U2 is based on the 40th Psalm.\n\nA \n \"Abigail\" by Motionless In White gives a perspective of the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller.\n \"Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts\" from the Manowar album The Triumph of Steel is a retelling of the fight between Hector and Achilles in The Iliad.\n \"Adam's Apple\" by Aerosmith retells the biblical story of the Fall of man through the perspective of Adam and Eve's discovery of their own sexuality.\n \"Afternoons and Coffeespoons\" by Crash Test Dummies adapts elements of the T. S. Eliot poem \"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock\".\n \"Ahab\" by MC Lars retells the story of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville from the perspective of Captain Ahab.\n \"All is Not Well\" by Hannah Fury is based on the romance of Elphaba and Fiyero from Wicked by Gregory Maguire.\n \"All Quiet On The Western Front\" by Elton John is inspired by the novel of the same title by Erich Maria Remarque.\n \"Alone\" by Green Carnation is based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same title. \"Alone\" by Arcturus is based on the same poem.\n \"Altair-4\" by Blind Guardian is about The Tommyknockers by Stephen King.\n \"Among the Living\" by Anthrax is about Stephen King's The Stand.\n \"The Ancient Ones\" by Morbid Angel is based upon The Call of Cthulhu as well as the other Cthulhu Mythos, all written by H.P. Lovecraft.\n \"And Then There Was Silence\" by Blind Guardian is based on The Iliad.\n \"And Your Little Dog Too\" by Hannah Fury is told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.\n \"Animal Farm\" by Hazel O'Connor is about George Orwell's Animal Farm.\n \"Animal in Man\" by dead prez is a retelling of George Orwell's Animal Farm.\n \"Anthem\" by Rush is loosely based on the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand. The band would produce a fuller version in 2112.\n\nB \n \"The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins\" by Leonard Nimoy retells J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.\n \"The Ballad of Skip Wiley\" by Jimmy Buffett is a song about the character from Carl Hiaasen's 1986 novel Tourist Season.\n \"Banana Co.\" by Radiohead is based on the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.\n\"The Bard's Song (The Hobbit)\" by Blind Guardian retells The Hobbit.\n \"Barefoot Children in the Rain\" by Jimmy Buffett partially retells Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.\n \"Las Batallas\" by Café Tacuba retells José Emilio Pacheco's Las batallas en el desierto.\n \"The Battle of Evermore\" by Led Zeppelin took inspiration from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings saga.\n \"Behind the Wall of Sleep\" by Black Sabbath is based on H. P. Lovecraft's short story Beyond the Wall of Sleep.\n \"Beneath These Waves\" by Demons & Wizards retells the story of Herman Melville's Moby Dick from Captain Ahab's perspective.\n \"Bernice Bobs Her Hair\" by The Divine Comedy is based on the short story of the same title by F. Scott Fitzgerald.\n \"Big Brother\" by David Bowie is one of several songs he wrote about George Orwell's 1984.\n \"Billy Bones And The White Bird\" by Elton John is based on the fictional character Billy Bones in the first section of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel Treasure Island.\n \"Billy Liar\" by The Decemberists relates some of the adventures of the title character of Keith Waterhouse's 1959 novel of the same name.\n\"Black Blade\" by Blue Öyster Cult is based on the Elric of Melniboné stories by Michael Moorcock.\n\"Black Corridor\" by Hawkwind is based on the book The Black Corridor by Michael Moorcock.\n\"Brave New World\" by Iron Maiden is based on the novel of the same title by Aldous Huxley.\n\nC \n \"The Call of Ktulu\" by Metallica is based on H. P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu.\n \"Calypso\" by Suzanne Vega is based on one of the scenes in the Odyssey by Homer.\n \"The Cask Of Amontillado\" by The Alan Parsons Project based on \"The Cask of Amontillado\", a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.\n \"Cassandra\" by ABBA is based on the character in The Iliad by Homer.\n \"Catcher in the Rye\" by the Dandy Warhols is inspired by J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye.\n \"Cent'anni di solitudine\" by Modena City Ramblers is based on the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.\n \"Chapter 24\" by Pink Floyd is about the I Ching.\n \"Chapter Four\" by Avenged Sevenfold is based on the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis.\n \"Charlotte Sometimes\" by The Cure draws from Penelope Farmer's 1969 novel of the same name.\n \"Child of the Jago\" by Kaiser Chiefs is a song about Arthur Morrison's A Child of the Jago.\n\"Children of the Damned\" by Iron Maiden is based on the book Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham and two of the film adaptations of that book: Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned.\n\"China in Your Hand“ by T'Pau is based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.\n\"Christabel\" by Robert Earl Keen is based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name.\n \"The Chronicle of the Black Sword\" by Hawkwind is based upon the works of Michael Moorcock, including Elric and Jerry Cornelius. Moorcock, who has appeared with the band on numerous occasions, does the narration on \"Live Chronicles\".\n \"Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)\" by The Tragically Hip references a passage from Hugh MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night.\n \"Crimson King\" by Demons & Wizards, on Touched by the Crimson King, is told from the point of view of Randall Flagg, the main antagonist from The Dark Tower by Stephen King.\n \"Crown of Creation\" by Jefferson Airplane draws from the science fiction novel The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.\n \"Curse of Athena\" by The Lord Weird Slough Feg is about Odysseus's return to Ithaca in The Odyssey.\n \"Cute Without the E (Cut From the Team)\" by Taking Back Sunday is based on William Shakespeare's play Othello.\n\nD \n \"Daedalus\" by Thrice is a retelling of the story of Daedalus and Icarus, so well known from Greek mythology.\n \"Dalai Lama\" by Rammstein is loosely based on Der Erlkönig by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.\n \"Damnation Alley\" by Hawkwind is from the 1960s novel of the same title by Roger Zelazny.\n \"Dante's Inferno\" by Iced Earth, retells Dante's Inferno.\n \"Dante's Prayer\" by Loreena McKennitt, inspired by Dante's Inferno\n \"The Dark Eternal Night\" by Dream Theater is heavily influenced by the short story Nyarlathotep by American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.\n \"The Dawn of a New Age\" by Satyricon is based on the Book of Revelation.\n \"Dead\" by Pixies refurbishes the biblical legend of David and Bathsheba.\n \"Don Quixote\" by Gordon Lightfoot is based on Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.\n \"Done with Bonaparte\" by Mark Knopfler is based on \"The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier\" by Jakob Walter.\n \"Dorian\" by Demons & Wizards is based on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.\n \"Doublespeak\" by Thrice is about George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four.\n \"Dracula\" by Iced Earth is about Dracula by Bram Stoker.\n \"The Drowning Man\" by The Cure is based on Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.\n\nE \n \"Edema Ruh\" by Nightwish is based on The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss.\n \"El Dorado\" by Iron Maiden references an Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name.\n \"Elvenpath\" by Nightwish draws in part from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.\n \"End of the Night\" by The Doors was inspired by Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline.\n \"The End of The Universe\" by S.P.O.C.K refers to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.\n \"Envoi\" by Absynthe Minded is based on Hugo Claus's poem of the same name.\n \"Eumaeus the Swineherd\" by The Lord Weird Slough Feg is based on the character in The Odyssey.\n \"Eveline\" by Nickel Creek is based on the James Joyce short story of the same name.\n \"Exit Music (For a Film)\" by Radiohead is based on Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.\n\nF \n \"Fable\" by Gatsbys American Dream is based on William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies.\n \"The Face of Dorian Gray\" by Robert Marlow is based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.\n \"Flight of Icarus\" by Iron Maiden is loosely based on the Greek myth of Icarus.\n \"Flower of the Mountain\" by Kate Bush is based on Molly Bloom's soliloquy in James Joyce's Ulysses.\n \"Footprints\" by Half Man Half Biscuit is a parody of \"Footprints\" by Mary Stevenson, itself adapted from Psalm 77:19.\n \"For Whom the Bell Tolls\" by Metallica is based on Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel of the same title\n \"Frankenstein\" by Iced Earth is about Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.\n \"Franz Kafka\" is a fictional rock opera by the fictional band Scäb (from the cartoon series Home Movies) that is about Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.\n \"From the Underworld\" by The Herd is loosely based on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.\n \"The Future Is Now\" by The Offspring is based on George Orwell's novel 1984.\n\nG \n \"The Ghost of Tom Joad\" by Bruce Springsteen is about The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.\n \"The Giant's Laughter\" by Thyrfing is inspired by the poem \"Jätten\" by Esaias Tegner.\n \"The Gladdest Thing\" by Deb Talan incorporates as its chorus the poem \"Afternoon on a Hill\" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.\n \"Grendel\" by Marillion is a retelling of John Gardner's 1971 novel Grendel, which is a retelling of Beowulf.\n\nH \n\"Hallelujah\", by Leonard Cohen, is based on the biblical story of David and Bathsheba. It also incorporates elements of the story of Samson and Delilah.\n \"Haunted\" by Poe and the novel House of Leaves by her brother, Mark Danielewski, both draw heavily on their difficult experiences growing up with their father, Tad Danielewski.\n \"Heart Of Love\" by Jamie Bond from The Heavenly Kid movie references the story of Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights.\n\"Hedda Gabler\" by John Cale is based on Henrik Ibsen's play.\n \"Hell in the Hallways\" by Ice Nine Kills retells Carrie by Stephen King.\n \"Hey (rise of the robots)\" by The Stranglers is partially inspired by I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.\n \"Hey Ahab\" by Elton John & Leon Russell is based on the character Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.\n \"Hey There Ophelia\" by MC Lars is a retelling of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.\n \"High Rise\" by Hawkwind is based on High-Rise by J.G. Ballard.\n \"The Highwayman\" is a Loreena McKennitt song which recounts a poem by Alfred Noyes. Phil Ochs originally wrote the musical interpretation of the poem which was taken and extended by Loreena McKennitt, without attribution.\n \"Home\", by Breaking Benjamin, is based on The Wizard of Oz.\n \"Home at Last\" by Steely Dan retells Ulysses' encounter with the Sirens from The Odyssey.\n \"Horrorshow\", by the Scars, is based on the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange.\n \"House at Pooh Corner\" and \"Return to Pooh Corner\" by Kenny Loggins are about The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne.\n \"House of Leaves\" by Circa Survive is based on House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.\n \"How Beautiful You Are\" by The Cure is a retelling of \"Les Yeux des Pauvres\", a poem by Charles Baudelaire from Le Spleen de Paris.\n\nI \n \"I Can't Let You In\" by Hannah Fury is about Fiyero's tragic affair with Elphaba (told from her point of view) from Gregory Maguire's Wicked.\n \"I Cheat the Hangman\" by the Doobie Brothers is a song inspired by the story \"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge\" by Ambrose Bierce.\n \"I Have Seen The Future\" by The Bravery is a song inspired by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.\n \"I Robot\" by the UK Subs is based on I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.\n \"If I Die Young\" by The Band Perry based on the poem \"Lady of Shallot\" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.\n\"If You'd Only Believe\" by The Jacksons references Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables.\n \"In Like a Lion (Always Winter)\" by Relient K is about C. S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.\n \"Indiana\" by Meg & Dia is based on the George Sand 1832 novel of the same name.\n \"The Inner Light\" from The Beatles took its lyrics straight from the Tao Te Ching.\n \"The Insect God\" by Monks of Doom sets Edward Gorey's poem/book of the same name to music.\n \"Insener Garini Hüperboloid\" by Vennaskond is about The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy.\n \"The Iron Dream\" by Hawkwind is based on The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad.\n\nJ \n \"Jack of Shadows\" by Hawkwind is about Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny.\n \"Jamaica Inn\" by Tori Amos is about Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier.\n \"Jean Val Jean\" by Edison Glass is inspired by Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.\n \"Jekyll & Hyde\" by Iced Earth is about The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.\n \"Jillian (I'd Give My Heart)\" by Within Temptation is about Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr.\n\nK \n \"Killing an Arab\" by The Cure is closely related to Albert Camus's The Stranger.\n\nL \n \"La cruz de Santiago\" by Mägo de Oz is inspired by the adventures of Captain Alatriste and is dedicated to his writer, Arturo Pérez-Reverte.\n \"The Lady of Shalott\" by Loreena McKennitt is based upon the poem of the same name written by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Momus has a song based on the same poem.\n \"Lay Down\" by Strawbs is based on Psalm 23.\n \"Legend of Xanadu\" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem \"Kubla Khan\".\n \"Let it Show\" by Hannah Fury is based on Gregory Maguire's Wicked.\n \"The List\" by Hank Green is based on John Green's Paper Towns.\n \"Lolita\" by Elefant is in part based on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.\n\"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner\" by Iron Maiden, based on the short story of the same name by Alan Sillitoe.\n \"The Longest Day\" by Iron Maiden is named after Cornelius Ryan's non-fiction book about D-Day, The Longest Day, and also explores the themes of D-Day.\n \"Lord of Light\" by Hawkwind from the novel by Roger Zelazny.\n \"Lord of the Flies\" by Iron Maiden retells Lord of the Flies by William Golding.\n \"Lord of the Flies\" by Elton John is based on Lord of the Flies by William Golding.\n \"Lord of the Rings\" by Blind Guardian is about The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.\n \"Lost Boy\" by Ruth B is based on Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.\n \"Love and Death\" by The Waterboys is a setting of the William Butler Yeats' poem.\n \"Love and Destroy\" by Franz Ferdinand is based on The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.\n \"Love Song for a Vampire\" by Annie Lennox is about Bram Stoker's Dracula.\n \"Love Story\" by Taylor Swift is loosely based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.\n \"Lucy\" by The Divine Comedy is a setting of three poems by William Wordsworth.\n \"Lullaby\" by Lagwagon is based on Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk.\n\nM \n \"Martin Eden\" by Billie Hughes retells the story of the novel of the same title by Jack London.\n\"Magnu\" by Hawkwind is based on the poem \"Hymn of Apollo\" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.\n \"A Man for All Seasons\" by Al Stewart was based on Robert Bolt's play.\n \"The Melting Point of Wax\" by Thrice retells the story of The Fall of Icarus.\n \"Memory\" from the musical Cats is based on lines from a poem by T. S. Eliot.\n\"Midsummer Night's Dream\" by Noe Venable speculates about the children's return from Narnia in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.\n \"Misery Loves Company\" by Anthrax is about Misery by Stephen King.\n \"Moon over Bourbon Street\" by Sting is about the character Louis de Pointe du Lac from Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.\n\"Moonchild\" by Iron Maiden is based on the novel of the same title by Aleister Crowley.\n \"Monster\" by Meg & Dia is based on Cathy Ames' character in John Steinbeck's \"East of Eden\".\n \"Mr. Raven\" by MC Lars retells \"The Raven\", a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.\n \"Mrs. Bluebeard\" by They Might Be Giants is told from the perspective of one of the wives of Bluebeard.\n \"The Mule\" by Deep Purple is based on the character from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.\n \"Murders in the Rue Morgue\" by Iron Maiden is based on the short story \"The Murders in the Rue Morgue\" by Edgar Allan Poe.\n \"My Antonia\" by Emmylou Harris with Dave Matthews is about the perspective of the character Jim from My Antonia by Willa Cather.\n \"My Name Is Macbeth\" by Mitch Benn is Shakespeare's Macbeth reworked in the style of Eminem.\n\nN \n \"Narcissist\" by The Libertines is loosely based on the character of Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.\n \"Narnia\" by Steve Hackett is based on the works of C. S. Lewis.\n \"The Nature of the Beast\" by Ice Nine Kills is based on Animal Farm by George Orwell.\n \"The Necromancer\" by Rush is loosely based on sections of The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.\n \"Nescio\" by The Nits is based on De Uitvreter by Nescio.\n \"Never Come Down Again\" by Hannah Fury is based on Gregory Maguire's Wicked, told from Elphaba's point of view.\n\"Nice, Nice, Very Nice\" by Ambrosia has lyrics taken almost verbatim from the poem in chapter 2 (and the bridge from the one on chapter 58) of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.\n \"Night ∞ Series\" is a series of 4 songs by Hitoshizuku-P x Yama. It tells the story of Bad∞End∞Night: Volume 1 and 2 by Hitoshizuku-P. (It is worth noting that the songs and the books goes hand in hand and the fact that the songs came before the books).\n \"Nights of Arabia\" by Kamelot is based on the framing story of Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights.\n \"No Love Lost\" by Joy Division is based on and includes quotes from The House of Dolls by Ka-tzetnik 135633.\n The video for \"November Rain\" by Guns N' Roses is loosely based on Del James's short story \"Without You\".\n\nO \n \"O Médico e o Monstro\" by Resgate is based on Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.\n \"The Odyssey\" by Symphony X is a seven-part song based on Homer's epic of the same name.\n \"Oedipus\" by Regina Spektor refers to the tragedy of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.\n \"Oedipus Rex\" by Tom Lehrer also refers to the Sophocles play.\n \"Of Unsound Mind\" by Metal Church is based on the short story \"The Tell-Tale Heart\" by Edgar Allan Poe.\n \"Off to the Races\" by Lana Del Rey makes references to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.\n \"Oh! You Pretty Things\" by David Bowie contains lyrics that reference Anthem by Ayn Rand.\n \"Ol' Evil Eye\" by Insane Clown Posse is based on Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart.\n \"Omega Man\" by Iron Savior is based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.\n \"One\" by Metallica is based on the novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.\n \"Oor Hamlet\" by Adam McNaughtan retells Hamlet by William Shakespeare.\n \"Out of the Silent Planet\" by Iron Maiden is based on the movie Forbidden Planet and the science-fiction novel by C. S. Lewis.\n \"Owen Meaney\" by Lagwagon is based on the novel A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving.\n \"Ozymandias\" by Jean-Jacques Burnel is a setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet of the same title.\n\nP \n \"Pantaraguel's Nativitiy\" by Gentle Giant is loosely based on Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel.\n \"Patrick Bateman\" by the Manic Street Preachers is about the lead character in American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.\n \"Pattern Recognition\" by Sonic Youth is based on William Gibson's novel of the same name.\n \"The Pearl\" by Fleming and John is based on the 1947 novella of the same name by John Steinbeck.\n \"Penelope\" by Robi Rosa is based on the character from Homer's Odyssey.\n \"Pennywise\" by Pennywise is about the character Pennywise from the novel It by Stephen King.\n \"Pet Sematary\" by Ramones is about \"Pet Sematary\" by Stephen King.\n \"The Phantom of the Opera\" by Iron Maiden is about The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.\n \"The Phantom of the Opera Ghost\" by Iced Earth is also about Leroux's play.\n \"A Pict Song\" by Billy Bragg is based on a poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling.\n \"A Picture of Dorian Gray\" by The Television Personalities is about Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.\n \"Poet\" by Bastille was inspired by Sonnet 81 by William Shakespeare.\n \"Poor Little Rich Boy\" by Regina Spektor refers to a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.\n \"Popular\" by Nada Surf is based upon the book Penny's Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity by Gloria Winters (1964).\n \"Prick! Goes the Scorpion's Tale\" By Emilie Autumn is based on the fable \"The Toad and the Scorpion\".\n \"Prince Caspian\" by Phish is about C. S. Lewis' Prince Caspian.\n \"Prince in the Scarlet Robe\" by Domine based on Corum Jhaelen Irsei, the main character in a series of books by Michael Moorcock.\n \"The Prophecy\" by Iron Maiden is based on the book Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, and appears on the concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.\n\nQ \n \"Quelque Chose de Tennessee\" by Johnny Hallyday quotes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (in French) by Tennessee Williams.\n\nR \n \"Raistlin and the Rose\" by Lake of Tears is based on Dragonlance Legends trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.\n \"Ramble On\" by Led Zeppelin mentions characters and places from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, including \"Mordor\" and \"Gollum\".\n \"Rebecca\" by Meg & Dia is based on the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same title.\n \"ReJoyce\" by Jefferson Airplane is Grace Slick's psychedelic version of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.\n \"The Resistance\" by Muse is based on 1984 by George Orwell.\n \"Restless\" by Elton John is based on George Orwell's novel 1984.\n \"A Revolta dos Dândis\" by Engenheiros do Hawaii mirrors the ideas present on \"The Dandy's Revolt,\" a chapter of Albert Camus's The Rebel.\n \"Richard Cory\" by Paul Simon is about the Edwin Arlington Robinson poem \"Richard Cory\".\n \"Ride a White Swan\" by T.Rex refers to the plot of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.\n \"Ride into Obsession\" by Blind Guardian is inspired by the story of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.\n \"Riki Tiki Tavi\" by Donovan is a spoof on the mongoose character from The Jungle Book.\n \"Rime of the Ancient Mariner\" by Iron Maiden is a retelling of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner\n \"Rivendell\" by Rush is about the fictional place of the same name from The Lord of the Rings.\n \"The River\" by PJ Harvey is based upon the Flannery O'Connor story of the same name.\n \"Robot\" by Hawkwind refers to the Three Laws of Robotics, conceived by Asimov.\n \"Roderigo\" by Seven Mary Three is based on the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.\n \"Romeo and Juliet\" by Dire Straits is inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.\n\nS \n \"Sahara\" by Eddie From Ohio retells Jon Krakauer's 1996 nonfiction book Into the Wild.\n \"Sailing to Philadelphia\" by Mark Knopfler is based upon Thomas Pynchon's book Mason & Dixon.\n \"Saint Veronika\" by Billy Talent is based on the novel Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho.\n \"The Salesman, Denver Max\" by The Blood Brothers is based on the Joyce Carol Oates short story \"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?\"\n \"Samson\" by Regina Spektor references the biblical story of Samson and Delilah.\n \"Scentless Apprentice\" by Nirvana retells Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind.\n \"The Sensual World\" by Kate Bush is based on the closing paragraphs of James Joyce's Ulysses.\n \"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun\" by Pink Floyd is based on the I Ching.\n \"Sex Crime (1984)\" by The Eurythmics based on George Orwell's novel \"Nineteen Eighty-Four\".\n \"Shadows and Tall Trees\" by U2 is named for a chapter of Lord of the Flies by William Golding.\n \"Shalott\" by Emilie Autumn tells the story of \"The Lady of Shallot\" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.\n \"Sigh No More\" by Mumford and Sons is based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and incorporates numerous phrases from that play.\n \"The Sign of the Cross\" by Iron Maiden appears to be partly based on Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose.\n \"Sirens of Titan\" by Al Stewart is based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel The Sirens of Titan.\n \"Skeletons in the Closet\" by Anthrax is about Apt Pupil by Stephen King.\n \"The Small Print\" by Muse tells the story of Faust from the point of view of the Devil.\n The Snow Goose by Camel is an album inspired by The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk by Paul Gallico.\n \"Soma\" by The Strokes references the fictional drug described in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.\n \"Someone Speaks Softly\" by Hannah Fury is based on Wicked by Gregory Maguire.\n \"Something Wicked That Way Went\" by Vernian Process is based on Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.\n \"Somewhere Far Beyond\" by Blind Guardian is based on The Dark Tower by Stephen King.\n \"Song For Clay\" by Bloc Party is inspired by Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis.\n \"The Soulforged\" by Blind Guardian talks about Raistlin Majere, a major character in the Dragonlance universe.\n \"Space Is Deep\" by Hawkwind is based on the Michael Moorcock book The Black Corridor.\n \"The Stand\" by The Alarm is about The Stand by Stephen King.\n \"Steppenwolf\" by Hawkwind is based on the novel on the same name by Herman Hesse.\n \"Still Life\" by Iron Maiden is about \"The Inhabitant of the Lake\" by Ramsey Campbell.\n \"Stormbringer\" by Deep Purple is about Elric of Melniboné.\n \"The Stranger\" by Tuxedomoon quotes Albert Camus's novel L'étranger.\n \"Such a Shame\" by Talk Talk is inspired by The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart.\n \"Sun and Steel\" by Iron Maiden is about \"Sun and Steel\" by Yukio Mishima, which is in turn about Miyamoto Musashi.\n \"Sweet Thursday\" by Matt Costa is based on John Steinbeck's 1954 novel Sweet Thursday. The song also references Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.\n \"Sympathy for the Devil\" by The Rolling Stones is inspired by The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.\n\nT \n The Tain is a song/concept EP by The Decemberists that retells the Irish epic \"Táin Bó Cúailnge\".\n\"Tales of Brave Ulysses\" is a single by Cream that retells Homer's The Odyssey.\n \"Talk Shows on Mute\" by Incubus is based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as well as Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?\n \"Tea in the Sahara\" by The Police is about The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. King Crimson also has an instrumental called \"The Sheltering Sky\", named for the same book.\n \"Tell Mary\" by Meg & Dia is based on the 1926 novel Mary by Vladimir Nabokov.\n \"Tell Your Story Walking\" by Deb Talan is based on Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem.\n \"Terror Train\" by Demons & Wizards is sung from the perspective of Blaine the Mono, a character in Stephen King's The Dark Tower, and recalls part of the plot.\n \"The Thing That Should Not Be\" by Metallica is based on H. P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu.\n \"Thumbelina\" by Nightmare of You is based on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.\n \"Time to Dance\" by Panic! at the Disco is based on Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.\n \"To Be or Not to Be\" by BA Robertson is based on William Shakespeare's plays.\n \"To Tame a Land\" by Iron Maiden tells the story of Dune by Frank Herbert\n \"To The End\" by My Chemical Romance retells the gothic horror story \"A Rose for Emily\".\n \"Toilet Tisha\" by Outkast retells the 18th-century Russian short story \"Poor Liza\" by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin.\n \"tolerate it\" by Taylor Swift is inspired by Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca. \n \"Tom Joad, Parts 1 and 2\" by Woody Guthrie retells The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.\n \"The Tomahawk Kid\" by Alex Harvey is based on characters from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.\n \"Tommyknockers\" by Blind Guardian is about The Tommyknockers by Stephen King.\n \"Traveler in Time\" by Blind Guardian is about Dune by Frank Herbert.\n \"A Trick of the Tail\" by Genesis is based upon The Inheritors by William Golding.\n \"The Trooper\" by Iron Maiden was inspired by \"The Charge of the Light Brigade\" by Tennyson.\n \"Turn, Turn, Turn\", by Pete Seeger, notably covered by The Byrds, takes its lyrics from chapter three of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Holy Bible.\n\nU \n \"United States of Eurasia\" by Muse took inspiration from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.\n\nV \n \"The Veldt\" by Deadmau5 was inspired by the 1950 short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury.\n \"Venus in Furs\" by The Velvet Underground is about the two main characters from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novel of the same name.\n\nW \n \"Walking On The Chinese Wall\" by Philip Bailey references the I Ching and Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin.\n\"The War I Survived\" by Hawkwind refers to Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.\n \"We Are the Dead\" by David Bowie is one of several songs he wrote about George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.\n \"Weight of Living, Pt. I\" by Bastille is based on \"The Rime of The Ancient Mariner\" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.\n \"Wheel of Time\" by Blind Guardian tells the story of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.\n \"When the War Came\" by The Decemberists retells Hunger by Elise Blackwell.\n \"When Two Worlds Collide\" by Iron Maiden tells the same story as When Worlds Collide by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer.\n \"Where Eagles Dare\" by Iron Maiden is based on Alistair MacLean's novel Where Eagles Dare.\n \"Which Way, Robert Frost?\" by Jacky Cheung references the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.\n\"White Rabbit\" by Jefferson Airplane is based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.\n \"William, It Was Really Nothing\" by The Smiths is based on Keith Waterhouse's novel Billy Liar.\n \"Windmills\" by Toad the Wet Sprocket is based on \"Don Quixote\" by Miguel de Cervantes.\n \"Wings\" by BTS is based on Demian by Hermann Hesse.\n \"Winston Smith Takes It on the Jaw\" by Utopia tells the story of George Orwell's novel \"1984\".\n \"Wuthering Heights\" by Kate Bush is about Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights.\n\nX \n \"Xanadu\" by Rush is based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem \"Kubla Khan\".\n\nY \n \"Yes!\" by Amber uses as lyrics part of Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's Ulysses.\n\nZ\n\nSongs that retell literature-based films\n\nThis is a list of songs that retell, in whole or in part, a film that was based on a work of literature.\n \"Into the West\" by Annie Lennox is about The Lord of the Rings\n \"So Said Kay\" by The Field Mice is based on the film Desert Hearts, which is an adaptation of Jane Rule's novel Desert of the Heart.\n\nSee also\nWizard rock\n\nReferences \n\nLiterature\nSongs\nSongs"
] |
[
"Good King Wenceslas",
"Source legend",
"Who is the story based on?",
"Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or \"righteous king"
] |
C_716ecc184e1b46299526e3451ae4328c_1
|
When was the legend created?
| 2 |
When was the legend of Good King Wenceslas created?
|
Good King Wenceslas
|
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"--that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor. Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from 12th century says: But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God's churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched. Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving. Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). The name Wenceslas is a Latinised version of Old Czech "Venceslav".
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year. Neale's lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones.
Source legend
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from the 12th century wrote:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (962–973) posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
Authorship
Tempus adest floridum
The tune is that of "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come"), a 13th-century spring carol in 76 76 Doubled Trochaic metre, first published in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jacobus Finno, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the "game of Venus" (goddess of love) in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts. The tune has also been used for the Christmas hymn Mary Gently Laid Her Child, by Joseph S. Cook (1859–1933); GIA's hymnal, Worship uses "Tempus Adest Floridum" only for Cook's hymn.
Neale's carol
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, the British envoy and minister in Stockholm, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to Neale, who was Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, Sussex and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore (Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea).
The book was entirely unknown in England at that time. As a member of the Tractarian Oxford Movement, Neale was interested in restoring Catholic ceremony, saints days and music back into the Anglican church. The gift from G. J. R. Gordon gave him the opportunity to use medieval Catholic melodies for Anglican hymn writing.
In 1849 he had published Deeds of Faith: Stories for Children from Church History which recounted legends from Christian tradition in Romantic prose. One of the chapters told the legend of St Wenceslas and his footsteps melting the snow for his page:
"My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."
"Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this ?"
Otto answered not.
"Follow me on still," said S. Wenceslaus. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."
The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.
For his 1853 publication Carols for Christmas-tide he adapted his earlier prose story into a poem, and together with the music editor Thomas Helmore added the words to the melody in Piae Cantiones, adding a reference to Saint Stephen's Day (26 December), making it suitable for performance on that Saint's Day.
The hymn's lyrics take the form of five eight-line stanzas in four-stress lines. Each stanza has an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. Lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 end in single-syllable (so-called masculine) rhymes, and lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 with two-syllable ("feminine") rhymes. (In the English tradition, two-syllable rhymes are generally associated with light or comic verse, which may be part of the reason some critics have demeaned Neale's lyrics as "doggerel".)
In the music the two-syllable rhymes in lines 2, 4, and 6 (e.g. "Stephen/even", "cruel/fuel") are set to two half-notes (British "minims"), but the final rhyme of each stanza (line 8) is spread over two full measures, the first syllable as two half-notes and the second as a whole note ("semi-breve")—so "fuel" is set as "fu-" with two half-notes and "-el" with a whole-note. Thus, unusually, the final musical line differs from all the others in having not two but three measures of 4/4 time.
Some academics are critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
Why, for instance, do we tolerate such impositions as "Good King Wenceslas?" The original was and is an Easter Hymn...it is marked in carol books as "traditional", a delightful word which often conceals ignorance. There is nothing traditional in it as a carol.
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol...Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting...not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.
Elizabeth Poston, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to say how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner it "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words". A similar development has occurred with the song O Christmas Tree, whose tune has been used for Maryland, My Maryland, The Red Flag, and other unrelated songs.
By contrast, Brian Scott, quoting from The Oxford Book of Carols its criticism and hope that the carol would "pass into disuse", says "Thankfully, they were wrong", for the carol "still reminds us that the giving spirit of Christmas should not happen just on that day..." Jeremy Summerly and Nicolas Bell of the British Museum also strongly rebut Dearmer's 20th century criticism, noting "it could have been awful, but it isn't, it's magical...you remember it because the verse just works".
Textual comparison
Other versions
William Lloyd Webber included Good King Wenceslas as one of his Songs without Words.
The Beatles' 1963 Christmas Record featured several renditions of the carol.
In 1984, Mannheim Steamroller recorded an electronic synthesizer arrangement of the carol for their first Christmas album.
The song's tune was re-worked by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their track "Christmas Jazz", from their 2004 CD The Lost Christmas Eve.
It was covered by English folk duo Blackmore's Night on their 2006 album Winter Carols.
It was covered by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt on her 1995 EP A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season, and reissued on her 2008 album A Midwinter Night's Dream.
In 2013, The Piano Guys made a piano-cello instrumental cover of this song for A Family Christmas, their Christmas studio album.
Mel Tormé covered the song on his 1992 Christmas Songs album.
Child Bite covered the song in their 2018 anthology Burnt Offerings.
Tenth Avenue North opened their 2017 Christmas album, Decade The Halls, with the song, setting it to 1920s era music.
Rob Halford, vocalist of metal band Judas Priest, covered the song on his 2019 Christmas album, Celestial.
The song is included on We Three Kings (The Roches album), the sixth studio album by the folk trio The Roches, released in 1990 on MCA Records.
The song is included in Relient K's Christmas Album Let it Snow...Let it Reindeer under the title, "Good King Wenceslas"
In popular culture
Walt Kelly's Pogo cartoon strip spoofs the song as "Good King Sauerkraut" and "Good King Winkelhoff".
In the film Love Actually, Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) sings the carol at the home of three small girls to explain his presence there while he is knocking on doors randomly searching for his love interest.
In the British show Miranda, Penny plays the song on the piano with altered lyrics.
In the Scottish film Filth, Dr Rossi sings the song with altered lyrics.
Two Doctor Who episodes have referenced the song. In the first episode of the 1975 series "Genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry find themselves in the middle of a minefield on the Dalek home planet Skaro. The Doctor turns to them and says, "Follow me and tread in my footsteps." Sarah Jane looks at Harry and remarks, "Good King Wenceslas." In the 2007 Christmas special entitled "Voyage of the Damned", an alien tour guide on board an alien spaceship replica of the Titanic mistakenly believes that Good King Wenceslas is the current monarch of the United Kingdom while explaining Earth's history.
In the television special A Muppet Family Christmas, Gonzo sings this song.
In the 1987 film Dragnet, LAPD Detective Pep Streebeck closes his eyes and starts singing this song during a high-speed chase when told to "think about Christmas" by his partner, Detective Joe Friday.
In Telltale's story driven videogame ""The Walking Dead: Season Two"" the character Sarita sings the carol in the second episode titled "A House Divided". Sarita talks about the meaning of the song with a young girl named Sarah as they decorate a massive christmas tree in the ski lodge.
In the movie The Muppet Christmas Carol, Bean Bunny sings this song to Scrooge. An instrumental rendition of the song is also played during the opening credits.
In the Discworld book Hogfather, the carol is slightly 'twisted' during a scene when Death, while acting as the Hogfather, encounters a king trying to give a beggar his feast as an act of charity, with Death criticizing the king's actions as simply wanting to be praised on Hogswatch night as he has never shown any concern for the beggar before nor will so in the future, forcing the king out and leaving the beggar with plainer food that is nevertheless more to his liking.
Buford and Baljeet sing this song with altered lyrics in A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas.
The song is begun by guests of The Simpsons in "White Christmas Blues". Marge, who doesn't like second verses of Christmas carols, remarks this one creeps her out from the beginning and leaves the room to listen to a blender.
In the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, the song is played by the Salvation Army Band outside of Higbee's Department Store.
In The Polar Express, the song is played briefly in one scene where the Polar Express passes the Herpolsheimer's store and in another scene, where the hobo sings it while playing the hurdy-gurdy.
The setting of Gene Wolfe's novel The Devil in a Forest is based on the second verse of the carol, which is given as the epigraph to the book.
The 1987 BBC radio play Crisp and Even Brightly, by Alick Rowe, is a comedic re-telling of the story in the carol, starring Timothy West as Wenceslas, and featuring a page called Mark and other characters not found in the carol.
On the Will & Grace season 6 episode "All About Christmas Eve", Karen sings the song with both Jack and Will to a bellman at her suite at the Palace Hotel.
On the Big Bang Theory episode "The Santa Simulation", Sheldon sings the song while playing Dungeons & Dragons with Leonard, Howard and Stuart, so that his character in the game can avoid danger. Sheldon insists on singing the entire song, even though he only needs to sing the first verse to complete his task.
In a blooper reel of the fourth season of TV series Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) start singing and dancing to the carol when entering the throne room during Tyrion's trial.
In an episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert sings the song with Michael Stipe and Mandy Patinkin.
In the Porridge Christmas Special, "No Way Out", Norman Stanley Fletcher and his fellow inmates sing the carol - until they are hushed by Mr. Mackay. In place of "When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel" comes: "When a Scotsman came in sight hollerin’...".
Comedian John Finnemore wrote a sketch for his Souvenir Programme based on the carol, in which the poor man criticises King Wenceslas for bringing unnecessary fuel and flesh, and for making his page carry them in the cold weather.
In an episode of Hogan's Heroes, several of the POWs loudly and repeatedly rehearse the song in order to distract the guards from the covert activities of the rest of the team.
At the ironic ending of Frederik Pohl's Science Fiction novel Jem, human colonists on a faraway planet developed the habit of celebrating Christmas by taking off their clothes and engaging in a wild orgy, their copulations accompanied by a chorus of the planet's enslaved indigenous beings singing "Good King Wenceslas", whose Christian significance was long forgotten.
The song was parodied by the British children's television programme, Horrible Histories. In this version, carol singers attempt to give a more historically accurate portrayal of the king, including a line about his murder.
The song is parodied by Peter Shickele (aka PDQ Bach) as "Good King Kong," though the melody quickly diverges from the original.
References
Literature
Scott, Brian (2015). But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them, Anderson,
External links
Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion. org
Gumpoldus Mantuanus Episcopus [0967-0985]: Vita Vencezlavi Ducis Bohemiae. 'The Life of King Wenceslas' Latin text by Migne Patrologia Latina, Vol. 135, col. 0919 - 0942C.
Christmas carols
Songs about kings
Songs about celebrities
Piae Cantiones
1853 songs
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Cultural depictions of Czech men
Cultural depictions of kings
| false |
[
"This article is a list of episodes from Space Symphony Maetel: Galaxy Express 999 Side Story, an anime OVA series created by Leiji Matsumoto. The OVA series was first aired in Japan from 6 August to 29 October 2004 on the Animax PPV Premier channel on the SkyPerfecTV satellite system in Japan. The series was created in order to bridge the gap between Galaxy Express 999 (1974) and Maetel Legend (2000) and was subsequently released on DVD.\n\nThe opening theme song was \"Everlasting Dream\" by Taro Hakase, and the ending theme was \"Galaxy Legend\" by Takako Uehara.\n\nEpisode list\n\nSpace Symphony Maetel\nLeiji Matsumoto",
"This was the first season ateam handball ranking for the men's clubs was created.\n\nLegend\n\nUSA Top 5\n\nReferences\n\nHandball in the United States"
] |
[
"Good King Wenceslas",
"Source legend",
"Who is the story based on?",
"Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or \"righteous king",
"When was the legend created?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_716ecc184e1b46299526e3451ae4328c_1
|
What did the righteous king do?
| 3 |
What did the righteous king Wenceslas do?
|
Good King Wenceslas
|
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"--that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor. Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from 12th century says: But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God's churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched. Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving. Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later. CANNOTANSWER
|
a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
|
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). The name Wenceslas is a Latinised version of Old Czech "Venceslav".
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year. Neale's lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones.
Source legend
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from the 12th century wrote:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (962–973) posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
Authorship
Tempus adest floridum
The tune is that of "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come"), a 13th-century spring carol in 76 76 Doubled Trochaic metre, first published in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jacobus Finno, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the "game of Venus" (goddess of love) in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts. The tune has also been used for the Christmas hymn Mary Gently Laid Her Child, by Joseph S. Cook (1859–1933); GIA's hymnal, Worship uses "Tempus Adest Floridum" only for Cook's hymn.
Neale's carol
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, the British envoy and minister in Stockholm, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to Neale, who was Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, Sussex and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore (Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea).
The book was entirely unknown in England at that time. As a member of the Tractarian Oxford Movement, Neale was interested in restoring Catholic ceremony, saints days and music back into the Anglican church. The gift from G. J. R. Gordon gave him the opportunity to use medieval Catholic melodies for Anglican hymn writing.
In 1849 he had published Deeds of Faith: Stories for Children from Church History which recounted legends from Christian tradition in Romantic prose. One of the chapters told the legend of St Wenceslas and his footsteps melting the snow for his page:
"My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."
"Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this ?"
Otto answered not.
"Follow me on still," said S. Wenceslaus. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."
The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.
For his 1853 publication Carols for Christmas-tide he adapted his earlier prose story into a poem, and together with the music editor Thomas Helmore added the words to the melody in Piae Cantiones, adding a reference to Saint Stephen's Day (26 December), making it suitable for performance on that Saint's Day.
The hymn's lyrics take the form of five eight-line stanzas in four-stress lines. Each stanza has an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. Lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 end in single-syllable (so-called masculine) rhymes, and lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 with two-syllable ("feminine") rhymes. (In the English tradition, two-syllable rhymes are generally associated with light or comic verse, which may be part of the reason some critics have demeaned Neale's lyrics as "doggerel".)
In the music the two-syllable rhymes in lines 2, 4, and 6 (e.g. "Stephen/even", "cruel/fuel") are set to two half-notes (British "minims"), but the final rhyme of each stanza (line 8) is spread over two full measures, the first syllable as two half-notes and the second as a whole note ("semi-breve")—so "fuel" is set as "fu-" with two half-notes and "-el" with a whole-note. Thus, unusually, the final musical line differs from all the others in having not two but three measures of 4/4 time.
Some academics are critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
Why, for instance, do we tolerate such impositions as "Good King Wenceslas?" The original was and is an Easter Hymn...it is marked in carol books as "traditional", a delightful word which often conceals ignorance. There is nothing traditional in it as a carol.
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol...Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting...not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.
Elizabeth Poston, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to say how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner it "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words". A similar development has occurred with the song O Christmas Tree, whose tune has been used for Maryland, My Maryland, The Red Flag, and other unrelated songs.
By contrast, Brian Scott, quoting from The Oxford Book of Carols its criticism and hope that the carol would "pass into disuse", says "Thankfully, they were wrong", for the carol "still reminds us that the giving spirit of Christmas should not happen just on that day..." Jeremy Summerly and Nicolas Bell of the British Museum also strongly rebut Dearmer's 20th century criticism, noting "it could have been awful, but it isn't, it's magical...you remember it because the verse just works".
Textual comparison
Other versions
William Lloyd Webber included Good King Wenceslas as one of his Songs without Words.
The Beatles' 1963 Christmas Record featured several renditions of the carol.
In 1984, Mannheim Steamroller recorded an electronic synthesizer arrangement of the carol for their first Christmas album.
The song's tune was re-worked by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their track "Christmas Jazz", from their 2004 CD The Lost Christmas Eve.
It was covered by English folk duo Blackmore's Night on their 2006 album Winter Carols.
It was covered by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt on her 1995 EP A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season, and reissued on her 2008 album A Midwinter Night's Dream.
In 2013, The Piano Guys made a piano-cello instrumental cover of this song for A Family Christmas, their Christmas studio album.
Mel Tormé covered the song on his 1992 Christmas Songs album.
Child Bite covered the song in their 2018 anthology Burnt Offerings.
Tenth Avenue North opened their 2017 Christmas album, Decade The Halls, with the song, setting it to 1920s era music.
Rob Halford, vocalist of metal band Judas Priest, covered the song on his 2019 Christmas album, Celestial.
The song is included on We Three Kings (The Roches album), the sixth studio album by the folk trio The Roches, released in 1990 on MCA Records.
The song is included in Relient K's Christmas Album Let it Snow...Let it Reindeer under the title, "Good King Wenceslas"
In popular culture
Walt Kelly's Pogo cartoon strip spoofs the song as "Good King Sauerkraut" and "Good King Winkelhoff".
In the film Love Actually, Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) sings the carol at the home of three small girls to explain his presence there while he is knocking on doors randomly searching for his love interest.
In the British show Miranda, Penny plays the song on the piano with altered lyrics.
In the Scottish film Filth, Dr Rossi sings the song with altered lyrics.
Two Doctor Who episodes have referenced the song. In the first episode of the 1975 series "Genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry find themselves in the middle of a minefield on the Dalek home planet Skaro. The Doctor turns to them and says, "Follow me and tread in my footsteps." Sarah Jane looks at Harry and remarks, "Good King Wenceslas." In the 2007 Christmas special entitled "Voyage of the Damned", an alien tour guide on board an alien spaceship replica of the Titanic mistakenly believes that Good King Wenceslas is the current monarch of the United Kingdom while explaining Earth's history.
In the television special A Muppet Family Christmas, Gonzo sings this song.
In the 1987 film Dragnet, LAPD Detective Pep Streebeck closes his eyes and starts singing this song during a high-speed chase when told to "think about Christmas" by his partner, Detective Joe Friday.
In Telltale's story driven videogame ""The Walking Dead: Season Two"" the character Sarita sings the carol in the second episode titled "A House Divided". Sarita talks about the meaning of the song with a young girl named Sarah as they decorate a massive christmas tree in the ski lodge.
In the movie The Muppet Christmas Carol, Bean Bunny sings this song to Scrooge. An instrumental rendition of the song is also played during the opening credits.
In the Discworld book Hogfather, the carol is slightly 'twisted' during a scene when Death, while acting as the Hogfather, encounters a king trying to give a beggar his feast as an act of charity, with Death criticizing the king's actions as simply wanting to be praised on Hogswatch night as he has never shown any concern for the beggar before nor will so in the future, forcing the king out and leaving the beggar with plainer food that is nevertheless more to his liking.
Buford and Baljeet sing this song with altered lyrics in A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas.
The song is begun by guests of The Simpsons in "White Christmas Blues". Marge, who doesn't like second verses of Christmas carols, remarks this one creeps her out from the beginning and leaves the room to listen to a blender.
In the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, the song is played by the Salvation Army Band outside of Higbee's Department Store.
In The Polar Express, the song is played briefly in one scene where the Polar Express passes the Herpolsheimer's store and in another scene, where the hobo sings it while playing the hurdy-gurdy.
The setting of Gene Wolfe's novel The Devil in a Forest is based on the second verse of the carol, which is given as the epigraph to the book.
The 1987 BBC radio play Crisp and Even Brightly, by Alick Rowe, is a comedic re-telling of the story in the carol, starring Timothy West as Wenceslas, and featuring a page called Mark and other characters not found in the carol.
On the Will & Grace season 6 episode "All About Christmas Eve", Karen sings the song with both Jack and Will to a bellman at her suite at the Palace Hotel.
On the Big Bang Theory episode "The Santa Simulation", Sheldon sings the song while playing Dungeons & Dragons with Leonard, Howard and Stuart, so that his character in the game can avoid danger. Sheldon insists on singing the entire song, even though he only needs to sing the first verse to complete his task.
In a blooper reel of the fourth season of TV series Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) start singing and dancing to the carol when entering the throne room during Tyrion's trial.
In an episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert sings the song with Michael Stipe and Mandy Patinkin.
In the Porridge Christmas Special, "No Way Out", Norman Stanley Fletcher and his fellow inmates sing the carol - until they are hushed by Mr. Mackay. In place of "When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel" comes: "When a Scotsman came in sight hollerin’...".
Comedian John Finnemore wrote a sketch for his Souvenir Programme based on the carol, in which the poor man criticises King Wenceslas for bringing unnecessary fuel and flesh, and for making his page carry them in the cold weather.
In an episode of Hogan's Heroes, several of the POWs loudly and repeatedly rehearse the song in order to distract the guards from the covert activities of the rest of the team.
At the ironic ending of Frederik Pohl's Science Fiction novel Jem, human colonists on a faraway planet developed the habit of celebrating Christmas by taking off their clothes and engaging in a wild orgy, their copulations accompanied by a chorus of the planet's enslaved indigenous beings singing "Good King Wenceslas", whose Christian significance was long forgotten.
The song was parodied by the British children's television programme, Horrible Histories. In this version, carol singers attempt to give a more historically accurate portrayal of the king, including a line about his murder.
The song is parodied by Peter Shickele (aka PDQ Bach) as "Good King Kong," though the melody quickly diverges from the original.
References
Literature
Scott, Brian (2015). But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them, Anderson,
External links
Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion. org
Gumpoldus Mantuanus Episcopus [0967-0985]: Vita Vencezlavi Ducis Bohemiae. 'The Life of King Wenceslas' Latin text by Migne Patrologia Latina, Vol. 135, col. 0919 - 0942C.
Christmas carols
Songs about kings
Songs about celebrities
Piae Cantiones
1853 songs
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Cultural depictions of Czech men
Cultural depictions of kings
| true |
[
"Jaredite kings are a series of monarchs described in the Book of Mormon, comprising chapters 6:22-15 of the Book of Ether. As death was approaching Jared and his brother, gathered together the Jaredite people to ask them what they desired of them before they died. The people then requested that they anoint one of their sons as king. This was grievous to them, and the brother of Jared remarked that \"surely this thing leadeth into captivity.\" Despite his brother's misgivings, Jared pressed him to allow the establishment of a Jaredite kingship at which suggestion the brother of Jared yielded.\n\nThe people chose Pagag, the firstborn of the brother of Jared. He refused. The people then wished to force him to be king but the brother of Jared would not allow that. They suggested his sons, Jacom, Gilgah, and Mahah, but they refused to be king. Then, Orihah, the fourth son, agreed to be king. Thus began the institution of monarchy among the Jaredites sometime after the Tower of Babel and the arrival of the Jaredites in the Americas.\n\nEarly kings \n Orihah - son of Jared, righteous king \n Kib - son of Orihah, righteous king \n Corihor - son of Kib, unrighteous king, usurped kingship from Kib \n Shule - son of Kib, overthrew kingship from Corihor and restored it to Kib, and then Kib bestowed kingdom on Shule\n\nDivided kingdom \n\nKingdom of Noah/Cohor \n Noah - son of Corihor, unrighteous king, battled Shule and obtained part of the kingdom including the land of first inheritance and Moron, slain by the sons of Shule \n Cohor - son of Noah, unrighteous king, slain by Shule \n Nimrod - son of Cohor, restored the monarchy to Shule \n\nKingdom of Shule \n Shule - son of Kib, righteous king\n\nReunited kingdom \n Shule - son of Kib, righteous \n Omer - son of Shule, righteous, fled with house from Akish \n\n Jared - son of Omer, unrighteous, usurped father then usurped by two brothers Esrom and Coriantumr \n Akish - friend of Omer, married the daughter of Jared, helped Jared regain the throne then usurped and killed Jared \n Omer - restored to the throne after the civil war of Akish had almost destroyed the entire kingdom\n Emer - son of Omer, righteous, saw Jesus Christ \n Coriantum - son of Emer, righteous \n Com - son of Coriantum, righteous \n Heth - son of Com, unrighteous, slew his father, great destruction in the kingdom, many move to area of Zarahemla \n Shez - descendant of Heth, righteous, rebuilt kingdom \n Riplakish - son of Shez, unrighteous, civil war overthrows Jaredite kingship. There was then a break in continuity of the kingdom because Riplakish was deposed and the government deferred to \"the people\" which after some generations a king and the kingdom was reestablished by Morianton\n Morianton - descendant of Riplakish, good king but morally weak, restores kingship among Jaredites \n Kim - son of Morianton, unrighteous \n Brother of Kim - usurped Kim, unrighteous \n Levi - son of Kim, usurped the kingdom, righteous \n Corom - son of Levi, righteous \n Kish - son of Corom, righteous \n Lib - son of Kish, righteous \n Hearthom - son of Lib, righteous\n\nRule of usurper kings \n Usurper kings (unknown number) \n Amgid - unrighteous\n\nKings in captivity under the usurpers \n Heth - son of Hearthom \n Aaron - son of Heth \n Amnigaddah - son of Aaron \n Coriantum - son of Amnigaddah\n\nRestoration of rightful lineage \n Com -son of Coriantum, righteous \n Shiblom - son of Com, righteous, fought with brother who slew the prophets, great destruction in the land \n Seth - son of Shiblom, unknown disposition, in captivity after his father was slain \n Ahah - son of Seth, unrighteous,\n Ethem - descendant of Ahah, unrighteous \n Moron - son of Ethem, unrighteous, usurped by a wicked \"mighty man,\" then regained throne only to lose it again\n\nFinal usurpers of rightful lineage \n Descendant of the brother of Jared - usurper who was a \"mighty man\" of unknown connection to Moron \n Coriantumr - unknown familial lineage, last king of the Jaredites\n\nContinuation of rightful lineage in captivity or outcast\n Moron lost kingdom and placed in captivity \n Corianton - son of Moron, lived entire life in captivity\n Ether - son of Corianton, final prophet, lived apart from the population\n\nCivil war under the reign of Coriantumr \n Shared - unknown familial lineage, unrighteous at war with Coriantumr, killed by Coriantumr \n Gilead - brother of Shared, unrighteous, battled Coriantumr and usurped the throne \n Gilead’s High Priest - unrighteous, murdered Gilead as he sat upon his throne \n Lib - unrighteous, member of one of the secret combinations, murdered Gilead’s high priest in a secret pass, usurped the throne, killed by Coriantumr \n Shiz - brother of Lib, unrighteous, waged total war on the people of Coriantumr leading to the end of Jaredite civilization, killed by Coriantumr\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Ether 7-15 \n Jaredite kings lineage chart\n Encyclopedia of Mormonism article on \"Jaredites\"\n\nBook of Mormon people",
"Matthew 9:13 is a verse in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.\n\nContent\nIn the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort this verse is:\nΠορευθέντες δὲ μάθετε τί ἐστιν, Ἔλεον θέλω, καὶ οὐ θυσίαν· οὐ γὰρ ἦλθον καλέσαι δικαίους, ἀλλ᾿ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν. \n\nIn the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nBut go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.\n\nThe New International Version translates the passage as:\nBut go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.\"\n\nAnalysis\n\"But go\" is said by many to be a rebuke, as if Jesus had said, \"depart out of My sight\". The words which are quoted are from Hosea 6:6. Lapide notes that sacrifice was considered one of the noblest elements of religion which shows the high regard placed on mercy.\n\nThe NIV leaves out \"to repentance\" (εἰς μετάνοιαν in Greek). \n\nSome have understood this statement to mean that Jesus only calls sinners to repentance, while those who are just he merely calls to follow him. However church fathers such as Hilary, Jerome, and Bede understand the words to be, \"I came not to call the righteous, that is, those who proudly, but falsely esteem and boast themselves to be righteous, when they are in truth sinners and hypocrites, such as you Pharisees.\"\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nChrysostom: \"Having first spoken in accordance with common opinion, He now addresses them out of Scripture, saying, Go ye, and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice.\"\n\nJerome: \"This text from Osee (Hosea 6:6.) is directed against the Scribes and Pharisees, who, deeming themselves righteous, refused to keep company with Publicans and sinners.\"\n\nChrysostom: \" As much as to say; How do you accuse me for reforming sinners? Therefore in this you accuse God the Father also. For as He wills the amendment of sinners, even so also do I. And He shows that this that they blamed was not only not forbidden, but was even by the Law set above sacrifice; for He said not, I will have mercy as well as sacrifice, but chooses the one and rejects the other.\"\n\nGlossa Ordinaria: \" Yet does not God contemn sacrifice, but sacrifice without mercy. But the Pharisees often offered sacrifices in the temple that they might seem to men to be righteous, but did not practise the deeds of mercy by which true righteousness is proved.\"\n\nRabanus Maurus: \" He therefore warns them, that by deeds of mercy they should seek for themselves the rewards of the mercy that is above, and, not overlooking the necessities of the poor, trust to please God by offering sacrifice. Wherefore, He says, Go; that is, from the rashness of foolish fault-finding to a more careful meditation of Holy Scripture, which highly commends mercy, and proposes to them as a guide His own example of mercy, saying, I came not to call the righteous but sinners.\"\n\nAugustine: \" Luke adds to repentance, which explains the sense; that none should suppose that sinners are loved by Christ because they are sinners; and this comparison of the sick shows what God means by calling sinners, as a physician does the sick to be saved from their iniquity as from a sickness: which is done by penitence.\"\n\nHilary of Poitiers: \" Christ came for all; how is it then that He says He came not for the righteous? Were there those for whom it needed not that He should come? But no man is righteous by the law. He shows how empty their boast of justification, sacrifices being inadequate to salvation, mercy was necessary for all who were set under the Law.\"\n\nChrysostom: \" Whence we may suppose that He is speaking ironically, as when it is said, Behold now Adam is become as one of us. (Gen. 3:22.) For that there is none righteous on earth Paul shows, All have sinned, and need glory of God. (Rom. 3:23.) By this saying He also consoled those who were called; as though He had said, So far am I from abhorring sinners, that for their sakes only did I come.\"\n\nGlossa Ordinaria: \" Or; Those who were righteous, as Nathanael and John the Baptist, were not to be invited to repentance. Or. I came not to call the righteous, that is, the feignedly righteous, those who boasted of their righteousness as the Pharisees, but those that owned themselves sinners.\"\n\nRabanus Maurus: \" In the call of Matthew and the Publicans is figured the faith of the Gentiles who first gaped after the gain of the world, and are now spiritually refreshed by the Lord; in the pride of the Pharisees, the jealousy of the Jews at the salvation of the Gentiles. Or, Matthew signifies the man intent on temporal gain; Jesus sees him, when He looks on him with the eyes of mercy. For Matthew is interpreted ‘given,’ Levi ‘taken,’ the penitent is taken out of the mass of the perishing, and by God's grace given to the Church. And Jesus saith unto him, Follow me, either by preaching, or by the admonition of Scripture, or by internal illumination.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOther translations of Matthew 9:13 at BibleHub\n\n09:13"
] |
[
"Good King Wenceslas",
"Source legend",
"Who is the story based on?",
"Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or \"righteous king",
"When was the legend created?",
"I don't know.",
"What did the righteous king do?",
"a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor."
] |
C_716ecc184e1b46299526e3451ae4328c_1
|
where did this king live?
| 4 |
where did King Wenceslas live?
|
Good King Wenceslas
|
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"--that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor. Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from 12th century says: But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God's churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched. Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving. Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later. CANNOTANSWER
|
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England.
|
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). The name Wenceslas is a Latinised version of Old Czech "Venceslav".
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year. Neale's lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones.
Source legend
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from the 12th century wrote:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (962–973) posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
Authorship
Tempus adest floridum
The tune is that of "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come"), a 13th-century spring carol in 76 76 Doubled Trochaic metre, first published in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jacobus Finno, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the "game of Venus" (goddess of love) in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts. The tune has also been used for the Christmas hymn Mary Gently Laid Her Child, by Joseph S. Cook (1859–1933); GIA's hymnal, Worship uses "Tempus Adest Floridum" only for Cook's hymn.
Neale's carol
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, the British envoy and minister in Stockholm, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to Neale, who was Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, Sussex and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore (Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea).
The book was entirely unknown in England at that time. As a member of the Tractarian Oxford Movement, Neale was interested in restoring Catholic ceremony, saints days and music back into the Anglican church. The gift from G. J. R. Gordon gave him the opportunity to use medieval Catholic melodies for Anglican hymn writing.
In 1849 he had published Deeds of Faith: Stories for Children from Church History which recounted legends from Christian tradition in Romantic prose. One of the chapters told the legend of St Wenceslas and his footsteps melting the snow for his page:
"My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."
"Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this ?"
Otto answered not.
"Follow me on still," said S. Wenceslaus. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."
The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.
For his 1853 publication Carols for Christmas-tide he adapted his earlier prose story into a poem, and together with the music editor Thomas Helmore added the words to the melody in Piae Cantiones, adding a reference to Saint Stephen's Day (26 December), making it suitable for performance on that Saint's Day.
The hymn's lyrics take the form of five eight-line stanzas in four-stress lines. Each stanza has an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. Lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 end in single-syllable (so-called masculine) rhymes, and lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 with two-syllable ("feminine") rhymes. (In the English tradition, two-syllable rhymes are generally associated with light or comic verse, which may be part of the reason some critics have demeaned Neale's lyrics as "doggerel".)
In the music the two-syllable rhymes in lines 2, 4, and 6 (e.g. "Stephen/even", "cruel/fuel") are set to two half-notes (British "minims"), but the final rhyme of each stanza (line 8) is spread over two full measures, the first syllable as two half-notes and the second as a whole note ("semi-breve")—so "fuel" is set as "fu-" with two half-notes and "-el" with a whole-note. Thus, unusually, the final musical line differs from all the others in having not two but three measures of 4/4 time.
Some academics are critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
Why, for instance, do we tolerate such impositions as "Good King Wenceslas?" The original was and is an Easter Hymn...it is marked in carol books as "traditional", a delightful word which often conceals ignorance. There is nothing traditional in it as a carol.
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol...Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting...not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.
Elizabeth Poston, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to say how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner it "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words". A similar development has occurred with the song O Christmas Tree, whose tune has been used for Maryland, My Maryland, The Red Flag, and other unrelated songs.
By contrast, Brian Scott, quoting from The Oxford Book of Carols its criticism and hope that the carol would "pass into disuse", says "Thankfully, they were wrong", for the carol "still reminds us that the giving spirit of Christmas should not happen just on that day..." Jeremy Summerly and Nicolas Bell of the British Museum also strongly rebut Dearmer's 20th century criticism, noting "it could have been awful, but it isn't, it's magical...you remember it because the verse just works".
Textual comparison
Other versions
William Lloyd Webber included Good King Wenceslas as one of his Songs without Words.
The Beatles' 1963 Christmas Record featured several renditions of the carol.
In 1984, Mannheim Steamroller recorded an electronic synthesizer arrangement of the carol for their first Christmas album.
The song's tune was re-worked by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their track "Christmas Jazz", from their 2004 CD The Lost Christmas Eve.
It was covered by English folk duo Blackmore's Night on their 2006 album Winter Carols.
It was covered by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt on her 1995 EP A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season, and reissued on her 2008 album A Midwinter Night's Dream.
In 2013, The Piano Guys made a piano-cello instrumental cover of this song for A Family Christmas, their Christmas studio album.
Mel Tormé covered the song on his 1992 Christmas Songs album.
Child Bite covered the song in their 2018 anthology Burnt Offerings.
Tenth Avenue North opened their 2017 Christmas album, Decade The Halls, with the song, setting it to 1920s era music.
Rob Halford, vocalist of metal band Judas Priest, covered the song on his 2019 Christmas album, Celestial.
The song is included on We Three Kings (The Roches album), the sixth studio album by the folk trio The Roches, released in 1990 on MCA Records.
The song is included in Relient K's Christmas Album Let it Snow...Let it Reindeer under the title, "Good King Wenceslas"
In popular culture
Walt Kelly's Pogo cartoon strip spoofs the song as "Good King Sauerkraut" and "Good King Winkelhoff".
In the film Love Actually, Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) sings the carol at the home of three small girls to explain his presence there while he is knocking on doors randomly searching for his love interest.
In the British show Miranda, Penny plays the song on the piano with altered lyrics.
In the Scottish film Filth, Dr Rossi sings the song with altered lyrics.
Two Doctor Who episodes have referenced the song. In the first episode of the 1975 series "Genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry find themselves in the middle of a minefield on the Dalek home planet Skaro. The Doctor turns to them and says, "Follow me and tread in my footsteps." Sarah Jane looks at Harry and remarks, "Good King Wenceslas." In the 2007 Christmas special entitled "Voyage of the Damned", an alien tour guide on board an alien spaceship replica of the Titanic mistakenly believes that Good King Wenceslas is the current monarch of the United Kingdom while explaining Earth's history.
In the television special A Muppet Family Christmas, Gonzo sings this song.
In the 1987 film Dragnet, LAPD Detective Pep Streebeck closes his eyes and starts singing this song during a high-speed chase when told to "think about Christmas" by his partner, Detective Joe Friday.
In Telltale's story driven videogame ""The Walking Dead: Season Two"" the character Sarita sings the carol in the second episode titled "A House Divided". Sarita talks about the meaning of the song with a young girl named Sarah as they decorate a massive christmas tree in the ski lodge.
In the movie The Muppet Christmas Carol, Bean Bunny sings this song to Scrooge. An instrumental rendition of the song is also played during the opening credits.
In the Discworld book Hogfather, the carol is slightly 'twisted' during a scene when Death, while acting as the Hogfather, encounters a king trying to give a beggar his feast as an act of charity, with Death criticizing the king's actions as simply wanting to be praised on Hogswatch night as he has never shown any concern for the beggar before nor will so in the future, forcing the king out and leaving the beggar with plainer food that is nevertheless more to his liking.
Buford and Baljeet sing this song with altered lyrics in A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas.
The song is begun by guests of The Simpsons in "White Christmas Blues". Marge, who doesn't like second verses of Christmas carols, remarks this one creeps her out from the beginning and leaves the room to listen to a blender.
In the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, the song is played by the Salvation Army Band outside of Higbee's Department Store.
In The Polar Express, the song is played briefly in one scene where the Polar Express passes the Herpolsheimer's store and in another scene, where the hobo sings it while playing the hurdy-gurdy.
The setting of Gene Wolfe's novel The Devil in a Forest is based on the second verse of the carol, which is given as the epigraph to the book.
The 1987 BBC radio play Crisp and Even Brightly, by Alick Rowe, is a comedic re-telling of the story in the carol, starring Timothy West as Wenceslas, and featuring a page called Mark and other characters not found in the carol.
On the Will & Grace season 6 episode "All About Christmas Eve", Karen sings the song with both Jack and Will to a bellman at her suite at the Palace Hotel.
On the Big Bang Theory episode "The Santa Simulation", Sheldon sings the song while playing Dungeons & Dragons with Leonard, Howard and Stuart, so that his character in the game can avoid danger. Sheldon insists on singing the entire song, even though he only needs to sing the first verse to complete his task.
In a blooper reel of the fourth season of TV series Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) start singing and dancing to the carol when entering the throne room during Tyrion's trial.
In an episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert sings the song with Michael Stipe and Mandy Patinkin.
In the Porridge Christmas Special, "No Way Out", Norman Stanley Fletcher and his fellow inmates sing the carol - until they are hushed by Mr. Mackay. In place of "When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel" comes: "When a Scotsman came in sight hollerin’...".
Comedian John Finnemore wrote a sketch for his Souvenir Programme based on the carol, in which the poor man criticises King Wenceslas for bringing unnecessary fuel and flesh, and for making his page carry them in the cold weather.
In an episode of Hogan's Heroes, several of the POWs loudly and repeatedly rehearse the song in order to distract the guards from the covert activities of the rest of the team.
At the ironic ending of Frederik Pohl's Science Fiction novel Jem, human colonists on a faraway planet developed the habit of celebrating Christmas by taking off their clothes and engaging in a wild orgy, their copulations accompanied by a chorus of the planet's enslaved indigenous beings singing "Good King Wenceslas", whose Christian significance was long forgotten.
The song was parodied by the British children's television programme, Horrible Histories. In this version, carol singers attempt to give a more historically accurate portrayal of the king, including a line about his murder.
The song is parodied by Peter Shickele (aka PDQ Bach) as "Good King Kong," though the melody quickly diverges from the original.
References
Literature
Scott, Brian (2015). But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them, Anderson,
External links
Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion. org
Gumpoldus Mantuanus Episcopus [0967-0985]: Vita Vencezlavi Ducis Bohemiae. 'The Life of King Wenceslas' Latin text by Migne Patrologia Latina, Vol. 135, col. 0919 - 0942C.
Christmas carols
Songs about kings
Songs about celebrities
Piae Cantiones
1853 songs
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Cultural depictions of Czech men
Cultural depictions of kings
| true |
[
"The Carnegie Hall Concert: June 18, 1971 was Carole King's first concert performance in front of an audience.\n\nPerformed on June 18, 1971, it was released years later, in 1996, as an album. This album has seventeen live songs. Some songs included: \"Will You Love Me Tomorrow?\", \"You've Got a Friend\", \"Child of Mine\", \"I Feel the Earth Move\", \"It's Too Late\", \"Beautiful\", \"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman\", \"After All This Time\", \"Carry Your Load\", \"Song of Long Ago\" and \"Home Again\".\n\nJames Taylor, a friend of King, accompanied her on \"Will You Love Me Tomorrow?\", \"Up on the Roof\", and \"You've Got a Friend\". Before she started singing, an old saying went into her mind, \"How did the man get to Carnegie Hall?\" Out loud she said the answer \"Practice man, practice!\" Then she performed.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written and composed by Carole King, except where noted\n\n\"I Feel the Earth Move\" – 3:36\n\"Home Again\" – 2:45\n\"After All This Time\" – 3:19\n\"Child of Mine\" (Gerry Goffin, King) – 4:03\n\"Carry Your Load\" – 2:59\n\"No Easy Way Down\" – (Goffin, King) 5:32\n\"Song of Long Ago\" – 3:24\n\"Snow Queen\" (Goffin, King) – 3:51\n\"Smackwater Jack\" (Goffin, King) – 3:49\n\"So Far Away\" – 4:12\n\"It's Too Late\" (King, Toni Stern) – 4:22\n\"Eventually\" (Goffin, King) – 4:38\n\"Way Over Yonder\" – 4:13\n\"Beautiful\" – 2:39\n\"You've Got a Friend\" [Performed with James Taylor] – 6:25\n\"Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?\" / \"Some Kind of Wonderful\" / \"Up on the Roof\" [medley; performed with James Taylor] (Goffin, King) – 7:46\n\"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman\" (Goffin, King, Jerry Wexler) – 4:09\n\nPersonnel\nCarole King – piano, vocals\nDanny Kortchmar – guitar\nCharles Larkey – bass\nDavid Campbell etc. – strings (uncredited)\nJames Taylor – vocals on \"You've Got a Friend\" and \"Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?\"/\"Some Kind of Wonderful\"/\"Up on the Roof\"\n\nProduction\nLou Adler – Producer\nHank Cicalo – Engineer\nHoward Frank – Project Coordinator for Ode Records\nOde Sound & Visuals – Art Direction & Photography\nDave Burle – Art Director\nStephen K. Peeples – Liner Notes\nJim McCrary – Photography\n\nAlbums produced by Lou Adler\nCarole King live albums\n1996 live albums\nAlbums recorded at Carnegie Hall\nEpic Records live albums\nLegacy Recordings live albums",
"Live & Well is a studio album by B. B. King, released in 1969. It consists of five tracks recorded \"live\" at the Village Gate, in New York City, and five additional studio tracks.\n\nExplaining the album's title, producer Bill Szymczyk wrote in the liner notes: \"We got together, what I consider to be, some of the best young blues musicians in the country and locked ourselves in 'The Hit Factory' for two nights. The results of those two nights are the 'well' side of this album.\"\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks by B. B. King, except where noted.\n\n\"Don't Answer the Door\" (James Franklin \"Jimmy\" Johnson) - 6:14\n\"Just a Little Love\" - 5:18\n\"My Mood\" - 2:39\n\"Sweet Little Angel\" (King, Jules Taub) - 5:03\n\"Please Accept My Love\" (King, Clarence Garlow, Sam Ling) - 3:14\n\"I Want You So Bad\" - 4:15\n\"Friends\" (King, Bill Szymczyk) - 5:37\n\"Get Off My Back, Woman\" (King, Ferdinand Washington) - 3:16\n\"Let's Get Down to Business\" - 3:36\n\"Why I Sing the Blues\" (Dave Clark, King) - 8:36\n\n\"Live\" Session: Tracks 1 to 5.\n\"Well\" Session: Tracks 6 to 10.\n\nPersonnel\nB.B. King – guitar, vocals\n\"Live\" session:\n\nSonny Freeman – drums\nLee Gatling – saxophone\nVal Patillo – bass guitar\nPatrick Williams – trumpet\nCharlie Boles – organ\n\n\"Well\" session:\nPaul \"Harry\" Harris – piano\nHugh McCracken – guitar\nGerald Jemmott – bass guitar\nHerb Lovelle – drums\nAl Kooper – piano [only on tracks 6 & 8]\n\nReferences\n\nB.B. King live albums\n1969 live albums\nAlbums produced by Bill Szymczyk\nBluesWay Records live albums"
] |
[
"Good King Wenceslas",
"Source legend",
"Who is the story based on?",
"Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or \"righteous king",
"When was the legend created?",
"I don't know.",
"What did the righteous king do?",
"a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.",
"where did this king live?",
"Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England."
] |
C_716ecc184e1b46299526e3451ae4328c_1
|
Was the king married?
| 5 |
Was King Wenceslas married?
|
Good King Wenceslas
|
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas' death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"--that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor. Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from 12th century says: But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God's churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched. Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving. Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). The name Wenceslas is a Latinised version of Old Czech "Venceslav".
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year. Neale's lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones.
Source legend
Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas rose up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex iustus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from the 12th century wrote:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (962–973) posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
Authorship
Tempus adest floridum
The tune is that of "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime has come"), a 13th-century spring carol in 76 76 Doubled Trochaic metre, first published in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jacobus Finno, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the "game of Venus" (goddess of love) in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts. The tune has also been used for the Christmas hymn Mary Gently Laid Her Child, by Joseph S. Cook (1859–1933); GIA's hymnal, Worship uses "Tempus Adest Floridum" only for Cook's hymn.
Neale's carol
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyric, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co the same year.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, the British envoy and minister in Stockholm, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to Neale, who was Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, Sussex and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore (Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea).
The book was entirely unknown in England at that time. As a member of the Tractarian Oxford Movement, Neale was interested in restoring Catholic ceremony, saints days and music back into the Anglican church. The gift from G. J. R. Gordon gave him the opportunity to use medieval Catholic melodies for Anglican hymn writing.
In 1849 he had published Deeds of Faith: Stories for Children from Church History which recounted legends from Christian tradition in Romantic prose. One of the chapters told the legend of St Wenceslas and his footsteps melting the snow for his page:
"My liege," he said, "I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return."
"Seems it so much?" asked the King. "Was not His journey from Heaven a wearier and a colder way than this ?"
Otto answered not.
"Follow me on still," said S. Wenceslaus. "Only tread in my footsteps, and you will proceed more easily."
The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the King: he set his own feet in the print of his lord's feet.
For his 1853 publication Carols for Christmas-tide he adapted his earlier prose story into a poem, and together with the music editor Thomas Helmore added the words to the melody in Piae Cantiones, adding a reference to Saint Stephen's Day (26 December), making it suitable for performance on that Saint's Day.
The hymn's lyrics take the form of five eight-line stanzas in four-stress lines. Each stanza has an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. Lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 end in single-syllable (so-called masculine) rhymes, and lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 with two-syllable ("feminine") rhymes. (In the English tradition, two-syllable rhymes are generally associated with light or comic verse, which may be part of the reason some critics have demeaned Neale's lyrics as "doggerel".)
In the music the two-syllable rhymes in lines 2, 4, and 6 (e.g. "Stephen/even", "cruel/fuel") are set to two half-notes (British "minims"), but the final rhyme of each stanza (line 8) is spread over two full measures, the first syllable as two half-notes and the second as a whole note ("semi-breve")—so "fuel" is set as "fu-" with two half-notes and "-el" with a whole-note. Thus, unusually, the final musical line differs from all the others in having not two but three measures of 4/4 time.
Some academics are critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
Why, for instance, do we tolerate such impositions as "Good King Wenceslas?" The original was and is an Easter Hymn...it is marked in carol books as "traditional", a delightful word which often conceals ignorance. There is nothing traditional in it as a carol.
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol...Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting...not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.
Elizabeth Poston, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to say how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner it "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words". A similar development has occurred with the song O Christmas Tree, whose tune has been used for Maryland, My Maryland, The Red Flag, and other unrelated songs.
By contrast, Brian Scott, quoting from The Oxford Book of Carols its criticism and hope that the carol would "pass into disuse", says "Thankfully, they were wrong", for the carol "still reminds us that the giving spirit of Christmas should not happen just on that day..." Jeremy Summerly and Nicolas Bell of the British Museum also strongly rebut Dearmer's 20th century criticism, noting "it could have been awful, but it isn't, it's magical...you remember it because the verse just works".
Textual comparison
Other versions
William Lloyd Webber included Good King Wenceslas as one of his Songs without Words.
The Beatles' 1963 Christmas Record featured several renditions of the carol.
In 1984, Mannheim Steamroller recorded an electronic synthesizer arrangement of the carol for their first Christmas album.
The song's tune was re-worked by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their track "Christmas Jazz", from their 2004 CD The Lost Christmas Eve.
It was covered by English folk duo Blackmore's Night on their 2006 album Winter Carols.
It was covered by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt on her 1995 EP A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season, and reissued on her 2008 album A Midwinter Night's Dream.
In 2013, The Piano Guys made a piano-cello instrumental cover of this song for A Family Christmas, their Christmas studio album.
Mel Tormé covered the song on his 1992 Christmas Songs album.
Child Bite covered the song in their 2018 anthology Burnt Offerings.
Tenth Avenue North opened their 2017 Christmas album, Decade The Halls, with the song, setting it to 1920s era music.
Rob Halford, vocalist of metal band Judas Priest, covered the song on his 2019 Christmas album, Celestial.
The song is included on We Three Kings (The Roches album), the sixth studio album by the folk trio The Roches, released in 1990 on MCA Records.
The song is included in Relient K's Christmas Album Let it Snow...Let it Reindeer under the title, "Good King Wenceslas"
In popular culture
Walt Kelly's Pogo cartoon strip spoofs the song as "Good King Sauerkraut" and "Good King Winkelhoff".
In the film Love Actually, Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) sings the carol at the home of three small girls to explain his presence there while he is knocking on doors randomly searching for his love interest.
In the British show Miranda, Penny plays the song on the piano with altered lyrics.
In the Scottish film Filth, Dr Rossi sings the song with altered lyrics.
Two Doctor Who episodes have referenced the song. In the first episode of the 1975 series "Genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry find themselves in the middle of a minefield on the Dalek home planet Skaro. The Doctor turns to them and says, "Follow me and tread in my footsteps." Sarah Jane looks at Harry and remarks, "Good King Wenceslas." In the 2007 Christmas special entitled "Voyage of the Damned", an alien tour guide on board an alien spaceship replica of the Titanic mistakenly believes that Good King Wenceslas is the current monarch of the United Kingdom while explaining Earth's history.
In the television special A Muppet Family Christmas, Gonzo sings this song.
In the 1987 film Dragnet, LAPD Detective Pep Streebeck closes his eyes and starts singing this song during a high-speed chase when told to "think about Christmas" by his partner, Detective Joe Friday.
In Telltale's story driven videogame ""The Walking Dead: Season Two"" the character Sarita sings the carol in the second episode titled "A House Divided". Sarita talks about the meaning of the song with a young girl named Sarah as they decorate a massive christmas tree in the ski lodge.
In the movie The Muppet Christmas Carol, Bean Bunny sings this song to Scrooge. An instrumental rendition of the song is also played during the opening credits.
In the Discworld book Hogfather, the carol is slightly 'twisted' during a scene when Death, while acting as the Hogfather, encounters a king trying to give a beggar his feast as an act of charity, with Death criticizing the king's actions as simply wanting to be praised on Hogswatch night as he has never shown any concern for the beggar before nor will so in the future, forcing the king out and leaving the beggar with plainer food that is nevertheless more to his liking.
Buford and Baljeet sing this song with altered lyrics in A Phineas and Ferb Family Christmas.
The song is begun by guests of The Simpsons in "White Christmas Blues". Marge, who doesn't like second verses of Christmas carols, remarks this one creeps her out from the beginning and leaves the room to listen to a blender.
In the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, the song is played by the Salvation Army Band outside of Higbee's Department Store.
In The Polar Express, the song is played briefly in one scene where the Polar Express passes the Herpolsheimer's store and in another scene, where the hobo sings it while playing the hurdy-gurdy.
The setting of Gene Wolfe's novel The Devil in a Forest is based on the second verse of the carol, which is given as the epigraph to the book.
The 1987 BBC radio play Crisp and Even Brightly, by Alick Rowe, is a comedic re-telling of the story in the carol, starring Timothy West as Wenceslas, and featuring a page called Mark and other characters not found in the carol.
On the Will & Grace season 6 episode "All About Christmas Eve", Karen sings the song with both Jack and Will to a bellman at her suite at the Palace Hotel.
On the Big Bang Theory episode "The Santa Simulation", Sheldon sings the song while playing Dungeons & Dragons with Leonard, Howard and Stuart, so that his character in the game can avoid danger. Sheldon insists on singing the entire song, even though he only needs to sing the first verse to complete his task.
In a blooper reel of the fourth season of TV series Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) start singing and dancing to the carol when entering the throne room during Tyrion's trial.
In an episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert sings the song with Michael Stipe and Mandy Patinkin.
In the Porridge Christmas Special, "No Way Out", Norman Stanley Fletcher and his fellow inmates sing the carol - until they are hushed by Mr. Mackay. In place of "When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel" comes: "When a Scotsman came in sight hollerin’...".
Comedian John Finnemore wrote a sketch for his Souvenir Programme based on the carol, in which the poor man criticises King Wenceslas for bringing unnecessary fuel and flesh, and for making his page carry them in the cold weather.
In an episode of Hogan's Heroes, several of the POWs loudly and repeatedly rehearse the song in order to distract the guards from the covert activities of the rest of the team.
At the ironic ending of Frederik Pohl's Science Fiction novel Jem, human colonists on a faraway planet developed the habit of celebrating Christmas by taking off their clothes and engaging in a wild orgy, their copulations accompanied by a chorus of the planet's enslaved indigenous beings singing "Good King Wenceslas", whose Christian significance was long forgotten.
The song was parodied by the British children's television programme, Horrible Histories. In this version, carol singers attempt to give a more historically accurate portrayal of the king, including a line about his murder.
The song is parodied by Peter Shickele (aka PDQ Bach) as "Good King Kong," though the melody quickly diverges from the original.
References
Literature
Scott, Brian (2015). But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them, Anderson,
External links
Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion. org
Gumpoldus Mantuanus Episcopus [0967-0985]: Vita Vencezlavi Ducis Bohemiae. 'The Life of King Wenceslas' Latin text by Migne Patrologia Latina, Vol. 135, col. 0919 - 0942C.
Christmas carols
Songs about kings
Songs about celebrities
Piae Cantiones
1853 songs
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Cultural depictions of Czech men
Cultural depictions of kings
| false |
[
"Charles King (March 16, 1789 – October 1867) was an American academic, politician and newspaper editor. He succeeded Nathaniel Fish Moore to become the ninth president of Columbia College (now Columbia University), holding the role from November 1849 until 1864.\n\nEarly life\nKing was born in New York City on March 16, 1789. He was the son of lawyer and politician Rufus King (1755–1827) and his wife Mary (née Alsop) King (1769–1819). Among his siblings was brothers John Alsop King, a Governor of New York; James Gore King, a U.S. Representative; Edward King; and Frederick Gore King.\n\nHis mother was an only child of Mary (née Frogat) Alsop and Continental Congressman John Alsop, a descendant of early American settlers, John Edward Underhill, Captain John Underhill, and Elizabeth Fones.\n\nKing was educated at the Harrow School (in Harrow, London) and received an honorary LL.D. from the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University) and from Harvard College in 1850.\n\nCareer\nAfter completing his education in England, King became a clerk in the banking house of Hope & Co. in Amsterdam. King returned to the United States in 1806, and began working for Archibald Gracie, a merchant. He became partner with Gracie in 1810, the same year he married Gracie's daughter, Eliza.\n\nKing was captain of a volunteer regiment in the early part of the War of 1812, although he opposed the War. He served in the 37th New York State Legislature as a Federalist member of the New York Assembly from July 1, 1813 until June 30, 1814, before becoming a newspaper publisher.\n\nA Democrat, he was editor of the New York American from 1823 to 1845, where he repeatedly clashed with Mordecai Noah, then Editor of the New York Enquirer; Noah nicknamed King \"Charles the Pink\".\n\nPresident of Columbia College\nOn 7 November 1849, he succeeded Nathaniel Fish Moore to become the ninth president of Columbia College (now Columbia University), holding the role until 1864. On his formal inauguration, on November 28, 1849, he spoke on the duties and responsibilities of the university staff, and espoused the virtues of copying the English university system.\n\nDuring his term as President, the Columbia Law School was founded (1858), the Columbia Medical School, which had been discontinued in 1810, was re-established (1858), and the Columbia School of Mines (1863). In addition to serving as president, he was a trustee from 1825 to 1838, and again from 1849 to 1867. He resigned the presidency in 1865 due to health concerns, and visited Europe with the intention of remaining abroad several years.\n\nPersonal life\nOn March 12, 1810, he married first to Eliza Gracie (1790–1825), the eldest surviving daughter of shipping magnate Archibald Gracie. Eliza's sister Sarah Gracie was married to Charles' brother James, another sister, Esther Rogers Gracie, was married to the Lt. Gov. of Rhode Island William Beach Lawrence, and her youngest sister, Mary Ann Gracie, was married to Judge Michael Ulshoeffer. Before his wife's untimely death in 1825, they were the parents of eight children together, including:\n\n Eliza Gracie King (1810–1883), who married Rev. Charles Henry Halsey (1810–1855)\n Esther Rogers King (1812–1898), who married Brig. Gen. James Green Martin (1819–1878)\n Rufus King (1814–1876), who married Susan McCown Eliot (1826–1892)\n William Gracie King (1816–1882), who married Adeline Taylor McKee (1817–1854)\n Charles King, Jr. (b. 1817), who died at sea\n Alice Consett King (1819–1861), who married Rev. Andrew Bell Paterson\n Archibald Gracie King (1821–1823), who died in childhood\n Emily Sophia King (1823–1853), who married Stephen Van Rensselaer Paterson (1817–1872), grandson of William Paterson (1745–1806), a U.S. Senator, Governor of New Jersey and Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.\n\nThe year following Eliza's death in 1825, Charles married secondly Henrietta Liston Low (1799–1882) on October 20, 1826. Henrietta was the daughter of Nicholas Low, a merchant and member of the New York State Assembly. Before King's death in 1867, they were the parents of six children, including:\n\n Anne Johnstone King (1827–1891)\n Cornelius Low King (1829–1893), who married Julia Ellen Lawrence (1832–1862), and later, Janet De Kay (1839–1896)\n Henrietta Low King (b. 1833)\n Gertrude Wallace King (b. 1836), who married American diplomat Eugene Schuyler in Paris in 1877.\n Mary Alsop King (1839–1894), who became a writer and married William Henry Waddington (1826–1894), the Prime Minister of France.\n Augustus Fleming King (1841–1862), who died during the Civil War\n\nKing died in Frascati, Italy in October 1867. He is buried in the Grace Church Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens, New York, New York.\n\nDescendants\nKing was the grandfather of Charles King (1844–1933), a major general with the United States Army as well as a noted author, who married Adelaide L. Yorke.\n\nReferences\nNotes\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n\n1789 births\n1867 deaths\n19th-century American newspaper editors\nPresidents of Columbia University\nGracie-King family\nNew York (state) Democrats\nPeople educated at Harrow School\nAlsop family",
"A royal wedding is a marriage ceremony involving members of a royal family. Weddings involving senior members of the royal family are often seen as important occasions of state and attract significant national and international attention. The following is a list of notable royal weddings:\n\n17th century\n\nEngland\n 14 February 1613: Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King James VI and I, was married to Frederick V of the Palatinate at Whitehall Palace\n\nSweden \n 25 November 1620: King Gustaf II Adolf was married to Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg at the Royal Castle.\n\n18th century\n\nPortugal and Spain \n 19 January 1729: In two simultaneous ceremonies, Joseph, Prince of Brazil, eldest son and successor of King John V of Portugal, was married to Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, while Mariana's half-brother Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, second son and successor of King Philip V of Spain, was married to Joseph's sister Infanta Barbara of Portugal.\n\nSweden \n 4 November 1766: Crown Prince Gustav, eldest son and successor of King Adolf Frederick, was married to Princess Sophia Magdalena of Denmark at Stockholm Palace.\n\n19th century\n\nRussian Empire\n 26 November 1895: Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, eldest son and successor of Emperor Alexander III, was married to Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at the Grand Church of the Winter Palace.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n 10 February 1840: Queen Victoria, only daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and successor of King William IV, was married to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace.\n 6 July 1893: Prince George, Duke of York, second son and successor of King Edward VII, was married to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace.\n\n20th century\n\nBelgium\n 15 December 1960: King Baudouin, elder son and successor of King Leopold III, was married to Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.\n 4 December 1999: Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant, eldest child and successor of King Albert II, was married to Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.\n\nGreece\n 14 May 1962: Princess Sophia, eldest child of King Paul, was married to Juan Carlos, Prince of Spain, the future King of Spain, at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Dionysius the Areopagite.\n 18 September 1964: King Constantine II was married to Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens.\n 1 July 1995: Pavlos, former Crown Prince of Greece, eldest son and second child of former King Constantine II, was married to Marie-Chantal Miller at St Sophia's Cathedral, London.\n\nMonaco\n 19 April 1956: Prince Rainier III was married to Grace Kelly at the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate.\n\nNepal\n 27 February 1970: Crown Prince Birendra of Nepal, third son and successor of King Mahendra, was married to Aishwarya Rajya Lakshmi Devi Rana.\n\nThe Netherlands\n 10 March 1966: Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, eldest child and successor of Queen Juliana, was married to Klaus von Amsberg at Prinsenhof.\n\nSweden\n 19 June 1976: King Carl XVI Gustaf was married to Silvia Sommerlath at Storkyrkan.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n 26 April 1923: Prince Albert, Duke of York, second son of King George V and successor of King Edward VIII, was married to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Westminster Abbey.\n 29 November 1934: Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V was married to Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark at Westminster Abbey\n 20 November 1947: Princess Elizabeth, elder daughter and successor of King George VI, was married to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey.\n 6 May 1960: Princess Margaret, younger daughter of King George VI, was married to Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.\n 8 June 1961: Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, third grandson of King George V and elder son and successor of Prince George, Duke of Kent, was married to Katharine Worsley at York Minster.\n 24 April 1963: Princess Alexandra of Kent, third granddaughter of King George V and only daughter of Prince George, Duke of Kent, was married to The Hon. Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey.\n 14 November 1973: Princess Anne, only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, was married to Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.\n 29 July 1981: Charles, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and heir apparent, was married to Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral.\n 23 July 1986: Prince Andrew, Duke of York, second son of Queen Elizabeth II, was married to Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.\n 19 June 1999: Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II, was married to Sophie Rhys-Jones at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.\n\n21st century\n\nBhutan\n 13 October 2011: Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan, was married to Jetsun Pema at the Punakha Dzong in Punakha, Bhutan.\n\nDenmark\n 14 May 2004: Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, elder son of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and heir apparent, was married to Mary Elizabeth Donaldson at the Church of Our Lady, Copenhagen.\n\nFrance\n 19 October 2019: Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon, head of the House of Bonaparte, was married to Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg at the Cathedral of Saint-Louis des Invalides, Paris.\n\nLuxembourg\n 20 October 2012: Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, eldest child of Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg and heir apparent, was married to Countess Stephanie de Lannoy at the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Luxembourg.\n\nMonaco\n 1 July 2011: Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco, only son and successor of Prince Rainier III, was married to Charlene Lynette Wittstock at the Prince's Palace of Monaco.\n\nThe Netherlands\n 2 February 2002: Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, eldest son and successor of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, was married to Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti at Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam.\n\nNorway\n 25 August 2001: Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, only son of King Harald V of Norway and heir apparent, was married to Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby at the Oslo Cathedral.\n\nSpain\n 22 May 2004: Infante Felipe, Prince of Asturias, only son and successor of King Juan Carlos I of Spain, was married to Letizia Ortiz at the Almudena Cathedral at Royal Palace of Madrid, Madrid.\n\nSweden\n 19 June 2010: Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, eldest child and heir apparent of King Carl XVI Gustaf, was married to Daniel Westling at the Stockholm Cathedral.\n 8 June 2013: Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland, youngest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf, was married to Christopher O'Neill at the Stockholm Palace Church.\n 13 June 2015: Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland, only son of King Carl XVI Gustaf, was married to Sofia Hellqvist at the Stockholm Palace Church.\n\nTonga\n 12 July 2012: Crown Prince Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala, elder son of King Tupou VI and heir apparent, was married to Sinaitakala Fakafanua at the Centennial Church in Nukuʻalofa, Tonga.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n 9 April 2005: Charles, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and heir apparent, was married to Camilla Parker Bowles at Windsor Guildhall.\n 29 April 2011: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, second grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, was married to Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey.\n 19 May 2018: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, third grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, was married to Meghan Markle at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.\n 12 October 2018: Princess Eugenie of York, third granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, younger daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson, was married to Jack Brooksbank at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.\n 17 July 2020: Princess Beatrice of York, second granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, elder daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson, was married to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi at the Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge, Windsor.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Royal Weddings Collection - Archived newsreels of British Royal Weddings\nRoyal wedding footage\n\nRoyal weddings\nWeddings"
] |
[
"William Beveridge",
"Report on social insurance"
] |
C_5276166e779d4662add78cf02f20871a_0
|
When did William Beveridge write a report on social insurance?
| 1 |
When did William Beveridge write a report on social insurance?
|
William Beveridge
|
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly. The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health. Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods. Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed how this goal might be gained. Alternative measures for achieving it included Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society. CANNOTANSWER
|
The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942.
|
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.
He built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges, and later as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.
Beveridge published widely on unemployment and social security, his most notable works being: Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), Pillars of Security (1943), Power and Influence (1953) and A Defence of Free Learning (1959). He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP (for Berwick-upon-Tweed); following his defeat in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords where he served as the leader of the Liberal peers.
Early life and education
Beveridge, the eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian Civil Service officer and District Judge, and scholar Annette Ackroyd, was born in Rangpur, British India (now Rangpur, Bangladesh), on 5 March 1879.
Beveridge's mother had, with Elizabeth Malleson, founded the Working Women's College in Queen Square, London in 1864. She met and married Henry Beveridge in Calcutta where she had gone in 1873 to open a school for Indian girls. William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school near the market town of Godalming in Surrey, followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he studied Mathematics and Classics, obtaining a first class degree in both. He later studied law.
While Beveridge's mother had been a member of the Stourbridge Unitarian community, his father was an early humanist and positivist activist and "an ardent disciple" of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Comte's ideas of a secular religion of humanity were a prominent influence in the household and would exert a lasting influence on Beveridge's thinking. Beveridge himself became a "materialist agnostic", in his words.
Life and career
After leaving university, Beveridge initially became a lawyer. He became interested in the social services and wrote about the subject for the Morning Post newspaper. His interest in the causes of unemployment began in 1903 when he worked at Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London. There he worked closely with Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and was influenced by their theories of social reform, becoming active in promoting old age pensions, free school meals, and campaigning for a national system of labour exchanges.
In 1908, now considered to be Britain's leading authority on unemployment insurance, he was introduced by Beatrice Webb to Winston Churchill, who had recently been promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Churchill invited Beveridge to join the Board of Trade, and he organised the implementation of the national system of labour exchanges and National Insurance to combat unemployment and poverty. During the First World War he was involved in mobilising and controlling manpower. After the war, he was knighted and made permanent secretary to the Ministry of Food.
In 1919 he left the civil service to become director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Over the next few years he served on several commissions and committees on social policy. He was so highly influenced by the Fabian Society socialists – in particular by Beatrice Webb, with whom he worked on the 1909 Poor Laws report – that he could be considered one of their number. He published academic economic works including his early work on unemployment (1909). The Fabians made him a director of the LSE in 1919, a post he retained until 1937. During his time as Director, he jousted with Edwin Cannan and Lionel Robbins, who were trying to steer the LSE away from its Fabian roots. From 1929 he led the International scientific committee on price history, contributing a large historical study, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (1939).
In 1933 he helped set up the Academic Assistance Council. This helped prominent academics who had been dismissed from their posts on grounds of race, religion or political position to escape Nazi persecution. In 1937 Beveridge was appointed Master of University College, Oxford.
Wartime work
Three years later, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour in the wartime National government, invited Beveridge to take charge of the Welfare department of his Ministry. Beveridge refused, but declared an interest in organising British manpower in wartime (Beveridge had come to favour a strong system of centralised planning). Bevin was reluctant to let Beveridge have his way but did commission him to work on a relatively unimportant manpower survey from June 1940 and so Beveridge became a temporary civil servant. Neither Bevin nor the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Sir Thomas Phillips liked working with Beveridge as both found him conceited.
His work on manpower culminated in his chairmanship of the Committee on Skilled Men in the Services which reported to the War Cabinet in August and October 1941. Two recommendations of the committee were implemented: Army recruits were enlisted for their first six weeks into the General Service Corps, so that their subsequent posting could take account of their skills and the Army's needs; and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was created.
Report on social insurance and views on full employment
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly.
The report to Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health.
Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.
Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed the view that it was "absurd" to "look to individual employers for maintenance of demand and full employment." These things must be "undertaken by the State under the supervision and pressure of democracy." Measures for achieving full-employment might include Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society.
Later career
Later in 1944, Beveridge, who had recently joined the Liberal Party, was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election to succeed George Charles Grey, who had died on the battlefield in Normandy, France, on the first day of Operation Bluecoat on 30 July 1944. Beveridge briefly served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, during which time he was prominent in the Radical Action group, which called for the party to withdraw from the war-time electoral pact and adopt more radical policies. However, he lost his seat at the 1945 general election, when he was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Robert Thorp, by a majority of 1,962 votes.
Clement Attlee and the Labour Party defeated Winston Churchill's Conservative Party in that election and the new Labour Government began the process of implementing Beveridge's proposals that provided the basis of the modern Welfare State. Attlee announced he would introduce the Welfare State outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with taxpayer funded medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide "social security" so that the population would be protected from the "cradle to the grave". The new system was partly built upon the National Insurance scheme set up by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1911.
In 1946, Beveridge was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Beveridge, of Tuggal in the County of Northumberland, and eventually became leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He was the author of Power and Influence (1953). He was the President of the charity Attend (then the National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends) from 1952 to 1962.
Eugenics
Beveridge was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state "but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights – including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood." Whilst director of the London School of Economics, Beveridge attempted to create a Department of Social Biology. Though never fully established, Lancelot Hogben, a fierce anti-eugenicist, was named its chair. Former LSE director John Ashworth speculated that discord between those in favour and those against the serious study of eugenics led to Beveridge's departure from the school in 1937.
In the 1940s, Beveridge credited the Eugenics Society with promoting the children's allowance, which was incorporated into his 1942 report. However, whilst he held views in support of eugenics, he did not believe the report had any overall "eugenic value". Professor Danny Dorling said that "there is not even the faintest hint" of eugenic thought in the report.
Dennis Sewell states that "On the day the House of Commons met to debate the Beveridge Report in 1943, its author slipped out of the gallery early in the evening to address a meeting of the Eugenics Society at the Mansion House. ... His report he was keen to reassure them, was eugenic in intent and would prove so in effect. ... The idea of child allowances had been developed within the society with the twin aims of encouraging the educated professional classes to have more children than they currently did and, at the same time, to limit the number of children born to poor households. For both effects to be properly stimulated, the allowance needed to be graded: middle-class parents receiving more generous payments than working-class parents. ... The Home Secretary had that very day signalled that the government planned a flat rate of child allowance. But Beveridge, alluding to the problem of an overall declining birth rate, argued that even the flat rate would be eugenic. Nevertheless, he held out hope for the purists." 'Sir William made it clear that it was in his view not only possible but desirable that graded family allowance schemes, applicable to families in the higher income brackets, be administered concurrently with his flat rate scheme,' reported the Eugenics Review.
Personal life
Beveridge married the mathematician Janet Philip, daughter of William Philip and widow of David Mair, in 1942. They had worked together in the civil service and at LSE, and she was instrumental in the drafting and publicising of the Beveridge Report.
He died at his home on 16 March 1963, aged 84, and was buried in Thockrington churchyard, on the Northumbrian moors. His barony became extinct upon his death. His last words were "I have a thousand things to do".
Commemoration
Beveridge Street in the Christchurch Central City was named for William Beveridge. It was one of 120 streets that were renamed in 1948 by Peter Fraser's Labour Government of New Zealand.
In November 2018, English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque commemorating Beveridge at 27 Bedford Gardens in Campden Hill, London W8 7EF where he lived from 1914 until 1921.
University College, Oxford's society for students studying and tutors involved in the study of Philosophy, Politics and Economics was recently renamed the Beveridge Society in his honour.
Works
Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909. online (Archive.org)
'Wages in the Winchester Manors', Economic History Review, Vol. VII, 1936–37.
Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.
Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (The Beveridge Report)
The Pillars of Security and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses, 1943, republished 2014.
Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.
The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.
Why I am a Liberal, 1945.
The Price of Peace, 1945.
Power and Influence, 1953.
"India Called Them," George Allen & Unwin, 1947
Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society by G. D. H. Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L. F. Easterbrook, Sir William Beveridge, and Harold J. Laski (Not illustrated with 127 text pages).
'Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era', Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. VIII, 1955.
See also
Aneurin Bevan, Clement Attlee's Health Minister
Beveridge curve – the relationship between unemployment and the job vacancy rate
List of liberal theorists
List of British university chancellors and vice-chancellors
List of United Kingdom MPs with the shortest service
List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Resources
Jose Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1997. .
Julien Demade, Produire un fait scientifique. Beveridge et le Comité international d'histoire des prix, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2018. .
William Beveridge's archives are held at the London School of Economics.
Photographs of William Beveridge held by LSE Archives
Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006.
References
Further reading
Addison, Paul. The Road To 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (1977) pp 211–28.
Harris, Jose. William Beveridge: a biography (1997) online.
Hills, John et al. eds. Beveridge and Social Security: an International Retrospective (1994)
Robertson, David Brian. "Policy entrepreneurs and policy divergence: John R. Commons and William Beveridge." Social Service Review 62.3 (1988): 504–531.
Sugita, Yoneyuki. "The Beveridge Report and Japan." Social work in public health 29.2 (2014): 148–161.
Whiteside, Noel. "The Beveridge Report and its implementation: A revolutionary project?." Histoire@ Politique 3 (2014): 24–37. online
Primary sources
Williams, Ioan, and Karel Williams, eds. A Beveridge Reader (2014); (Works of William H. Beveridge).
External links
Sir William Beveridge Foundation
Spartacus Educational on William Beveridge and The Beveridge Report
Full text of the report
BBC information
BBC Radio 4, Great Lives – Downloadable 30 minute discussion of William Beveridge
Catalogue of William Beveridge's papers at the London School of Economics (LSE Archives)
Cataloguing the Beveridge papers at LSE Archives
1879 births
1963 deaths
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of University College, Oxford
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
British agnostics
British humanists
British economists
British reformers
British social liberals
Civil servants in the Board of Trade
English people of Scottish descent
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
Liberal Party (UK) hereditary peers
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Masters of University College, Oxford
People educated at Charterhouse School
People associated with the London School of Economics
Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Food
Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
British social reformers
UK MPs 1935–1945
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Peers created by George VI
| false |
[
"William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945. \n \nHe built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges, and later as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.\n\nBeveridge published widely on unemployment and social security, his most notable works being: Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), Pillars of Security (1943), Power and Influence (1953) and A Defence of Free Learning (1959). He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP (for Berwick-upon-Tweed); following his defeat in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords where he served as the leader of the Liberal peers.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nBeveridge, the eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian Civil Service officer and District Judge, and scholar Annette Ackroyd, was born in Rangpur, British India (now Rangpur, Bangladesh), on 5 March 1879.\n\nBeveridge's mother had, with Elizabeth Malleson, founded the Working Women's College in Queen Square, London in 1864. She met and married Henry Beveridge in Calcutta where she had gone in 1873 to open a school for Indian girls. William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school near the market town of Godalming in Surrey, followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he studied Mathematics and Classics, obtaining a first class degree in both. He later studied law.\n\nWhile Beveridge's mother had been a member of the Stourbridge Unitarian community, his father was an early humanist and positivist activist and \"an ardent disciple\" of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Comte's ideas of a secular religion of humanity were a prominent influence in the household and would exert a lasting influence on Beveridge's thinking. Beveridge himself became a \"materialist agnostic\", in his words.\n\nLife and career\n\nAfter leaving university, Beveridge initially became a lawyer. He became interested in the social services and wrote about the subject for the Morning Post newspaper. His interest in the causes of unemployment began in 1903 when he worked at Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London. There he worked closely with Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and was influenced by their theories of social reform, becoming active in promoting old age pensions, free school meals, and campaigning for a national system of labour exchanges.\n\nIn 1908, now considered to be Britain's leading authority on unemployment insurance, he was introduced by Beatrice Webb to Winston Churchill, who had recently been promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Churchill invited Beveridge to join the Board of Trade, and he organised the implementation of the national system of labour exchanges and National Insurance to combat unemployment and poverty. During the First World War he was involved in mobilising and controlling manpower. After the war, he was knighted and made permanent secretary to the Ministry of Food.\n\nIn 1919 he left the civil service to become director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Over the next few years he served on several commissions and committees on social policy. He was so highly influenced by the Fabian Society socialists – in particular by Beatrice Webb, with whom he worked on the 1909 Poor Laws report – that he could be considered one of their number. He published academic economic works including his early work on unemployment (1909). The Fabians made him a director of the LSE in 1919, a post he retained until 1937. During his time as Director, he jousted with Edwin Cannan and Lionel Robbins, who were trying to steer the LSE away from its Fabian roots. From 1929 he led the International scientific committee on price history, contributing a large historical study, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (1939).\n\nIn 1933 he helped set up the Academic Assistance Council. This helped prominent academics who had been dismissed from their posts on grounds of race, religion or political position to escape Nazi persecution. In 1937 Beveridge was appointed Master of University College, Oxford.\n\nWartime work\n\nThree years later, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour in the wartime National government, invited Beveridge to take charge of the Welfare department of his Ministry. Beveridge refused, but declared an interest in organising British manpower in wartime (Beveridge had come to favour a strong system of centralised planning). Bevin was reluctant to let Beveridge have his way but did commission him to work on a relatively unimportant manpower survey from June 1940 and so Beveridge became a temporary civil servant. Neither Bevin nor the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Sir Thomas Phillips liked working with Beveridge as both found him conceited.\n\nHis work on manpower culminated in his chairmanship of the Committee on Skilled Men in the Services which reported to the War Cabinet in August and October 1941. Two recommendations of the committee were implemented: Army recruits were enlisted for their first six weeks into the General Service Corps, so that their subsequent posting could take account of their skills and the Army's needs; and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was created.\n\nReport on social insurance and views on full employment\nAn opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly.\n\nThe report to Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living \"below which no one should be allowed to fall\". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the \"five giants on the road of reconstruction\" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health.\n\nBeveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.\n\nBeveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed the view that it was \"absurd\" to \"look to individual employers for maintenance of demand and full employment.\" These things must be \"undertaken by the State under the supervision and pressure of democracy.\" Measures for achieving full-employment might include Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society.\n\nLater career\n\nLater in 1944, Beveridge, who had recently joined the Liberal Party, was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election to succeed George Charles Grey, who had died on the battlefield in Normandy, France, on the first day of Operation Bluecoat on 30 July 1944. Beveridge briefly served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, during which time he was prominent in the Radical Action group, which called for the party to withdraw from the war-time electoral pact and adopt more radical policies. However, he lost his seat at the 1945 general election, when he was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Robert Thorp, by a majority of 1,962 votes.\n\nClement Attlee and the Labour Party defeated Winston Churchill's Conservative Party in that election and the new Labour Government began the process of implementing Beveridge's proposals that provided the basis of the modern Welfare State. Attlee announced he would introduce the Welfare State outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with taxpayer funded medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide \"social security\" so that the population would be protected from the \"cradle to the grave\". The new system was partly built upon the National Insurance scheme set up by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1911.\n\nIn 1946, Beveridge was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Beveridge, of Tuggal in the County of Northumberland, and eventually became leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He was the author of Power and Influence (1953). He was the President of the charity Attend (then the National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends) from 1952 to 1962.\n\nEugenics\nBeveridge was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state \"but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights – including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood.\" Whilst director of the London School of Economics, Beveridge attempted to create a Department of Social Biology. Though never fully established, Lancelot Hogben, a fierce anti-eugenicist, was named its chair. Former LSE director John Ashworth speculated that discord between those in favour and those against the serious study of eugenics led to Beveridge's departure from the school in 1937.\n\nIn the 1940s, Beveridge credited the Eugenics Society with promoting the children's allowance, which was incorporated into his 1942 report. However, whilst he held views in support of eugenics, he did not believe the report had any overall \"eugenic value\". Professor Danny Dorling said that \"there is not even the faintest hint\" of eugenic thought in the report.\n\nDennis Sewell states that \"On the day the House of Commons met to debate the Beveridge Report in 1943, its author slipped out of the gallery early in the evening to address a meeting of the Eugenics Society at the Mansion House. ... His report he was keen to reassure them, was eugenic in intent and would prove so in effect. ... The idea of child allowances had been developed within the society with the twin aims of encouraging the educated professional classes to have more children than they currently did and, at the same time, to limit the number of children born to poor households. For both effects to be properly stimulated, the allowance needed to be graded: middle-class parents receiving more generous payments than working-class parents. ... The Home Secretary had that very day signalled that the government planned a flat rate of child allowance. But Beveridge, alluding to the problem of an overall declining birth rate, argued that even the flat rate would be eugenic. Nevertheless, he held out hope for the purists.\" 'Sir William made it clear that it was in his view not only possible but desirable that graded family allowance schemes, applicable to families in the higher income brackets, be administered concurrently with his flat rate scheme,' reported the Eugenics Review.\n\nPersonal life\n\nBeveridge married the mathematician Janet Philip, daughter of William Philip and widow of David Mair, in 1942. They had worked together in the civil service and at LSE, and she was instrumental in the drafting and publicising of the Beveridge Report.\n\nHe died at his home on 16 March 1963, aged 84, and was buried in Thockrington churchyard, on the Northumbrian moors. His barony became extinct upon his death. His last words were \"I have a thousand things to do\".\n\nCommemoration\nBeveridge Street in the Christchurch Central City was named for William Beveridge. It was one of 120 streets that were renamed in 1948 by Peter Fraser's Labour Government of New Zealand.\n\nIn November 2018, English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque commemorating Beveridge at 27 Bedford Gardens in Campden Hill, London W8 7EF where he lived from 1914 until 1921.\n\nUniversity College, Oxford's society for students studying and tutors involved in the study of Philosophy, Politics and Economics was recently renamed the Beveridge Society in his honour.\n\nWorks\n Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909. online (Archive.org)\n 'Wages in the Winchester Manors', Economic History Review, Vol. VII, 1936–37. \n Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.\n Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (The Beveridge Report)\n The Pillars of Security and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses, 1943, republished 2014.\n Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.\n The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.\n Why I am a Liberal, 1945.\n The Price of Peace, 1945.\n Power and Influence, 1953.\n \"India Called Them,\" George Allen & Unwin, 1947\n Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society by G. D. H. Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L. F. Easterbrook, Sir William Beveridge, and Harold J. Laski (Not illustrated with 127 text pages).\n 'Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era', Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. VIII, 1955.\n\nSee also\n Aneurin Bevan, Clement Attlee's Health Minister\n Beveridge curve – the relationship between unemployment and the job vacancy rate\nList of liberal theorists\n List of British university chancellors and vice-chancellors\n List of United Kingdom MPs with the shortest service\n List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of London\n\nResources\n Jose Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1997. .\n Julien Demade, Produire un fait scientifique. Beveridge et le Comité international d'histoire des prix, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2018. .\n William Beveridge's archives are held at the London School of Economics.\n Photographs of William Beveridge held by LSE Archives\n Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Addison, Paul. The Road To 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (1977) pp 211–28.\n Harris, Jose. William Beveridge: a biography (1997) online.\n Hills, John et al. eds. Beveridge and Social Security: an International Retrospective (1994)\n Robertson, David Brian. \"Policy entrepreneurs and policy divergence: John R. Commons and William Beveridge.\" Social Service Review 62.3 (1988): 504–531.\n Sugita, Yoneyuki. \"The Beveridge Report and Japan.\" Social work in public health 29.2 (2014): 148–161.\n Whiteside, Noel. \"The Beveridge Report and its implementation: A revolutionary project?.\" Histoire@ Politique 3 (2014): 24–37. online\n\nPrimary sources\n Williams, Ioan, and Karel Williams, eds. A Beveridge Reader (2014); (Works of William H. Beveridge).\n\nExternal links \n\n \n Sir William Beveridge Foundation\n Spartacus Educational on William Beveridge and The Beveridge Report\n Full text of the report\n BBC information\n BBC Radio 4, Great Lives – Downloadable 30 minute discussion of William Beveridge\n Catalogue of William Beveridge's papers at the London School of Economics (LSE Archives)\n Cataloguing the Beveridge papers at LSE Archives\n\n \n\n1879 births\n1963 deaths\nAlumni of Balliol College, Oxford\nAlumni of University College, Oxford\nBarons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom\nBritish agnostics\nBritish humanists\nBritish economists\nBritish reformers\nBritish social liberals\nCivil servants in the Board of Trade\nEnglish people of Scottish descent\nKnights Commander of the Order of the Bath\nLiberal Party (UK) hereditary peers\nLiberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies\nMasters of University College, Oxford\nPeople educated at Charterhouse School\nPeople associated with the London School of Economics\nPermanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Food\nPresidents of the Royal Statistical Society\nBritish social reformers\nUK MPs 1935–1945\nUK MPs who were granted peerages\nVice-Chancellors of the University of London\nPeers created by George VI",
"The Beveridge Report, officially entitled Social Insurance and Allied Services (Cmd. 6404), is a government report, published in November 1942, influential in the founding of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It was drafted by the Liberal economist William Beveridge - with research and publicity by his wife and mathematician Janet Beveridge - who proposed widespread reforms to the system of social welfare to address what he identified as \"five giants on the road of reconstruction\": \"Want… Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness\". Published in the midst of World War II, the report promised rewards for everyone's sacrifices. Overwhelmingly popular with the public, it formed the basis for the post-war reforms known as the Welfare State, which include the expansion of National Insurance and the creation of the National Health Service.\n\nBackground\nIn 1940, during the Second World War, the Labour Party entered into a coalition with the Conservative Party. On 10 June 1941 Arthur Greenwood, the Labour MP and Minister without Portfolio, announced the creation of an inter-departmental committee which would carry out a survey of Britain's social insurance and allied services:\n\nIts members were civil servants from the Home Office, Ministry of Labour and National Service, Ministry of Pensions, Government Actuary, Ministry of Health, HM Treasury, Reconstruction Secretariat, Board of Customs and Excise, Assistance Board, Department of Health for Scotland, Registry of Friendly Societies and Office of the Industrial Assurance Commissioner.\n\nThe report was printed by Alabaster Passmore & Sons Limited which kept their factory in Maidstone busy when there was very little other printing work available.\n\nRecommendations\nThe Report offered three guiding principles to its recommendations:\n Proposals for the future should not be limited by \"sectional interests\". A \"revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching\".\n Social insurance is only one part of a \"comprehensive policy of social progress\". The five giants on the road to reconstruction were Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.\n Policies of social security \"must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual\", with the state securing the service and contributions. The state \"should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family\".\n\nBeveridge was opposed to \"means-tested\" benefits. His proposal was for a flat rate universal contribution in exchange for a flat rate universal benefit. Means-testing was intended to play a tiny part because it created high marginal tax rates for the poor (the \"poverty trap\").\n\nReaction\nInside the Cabinet, there was debate, instigated by Brendan Bracken, on 16 November 1942 over whether to publish the Report as a White Paper at that time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, said that it involved \"an impracticable financial commitment\" and that publication should therefore be postponed. However, the Cabinet decided on 26 November to publish it on 2 December.\n\nThe Ministry of Information Home Intelligence found that the Report had been \"welcomed with almost universal approval by people of all shades of opinion and by all sections of the community\" and seen as \"the first real attempt to put into practice the talk about a new world\". In a sample poll taken in the fortnight after the Report's publication, the British Institute of Public Opinion found that 95% of the public had heard of the Report and that there was \"great interest in it\", but there was criticism that old age pensions were not high enough. They also found that \"there was overwhelming agreement that the plan should be put into effect\".\n\nThe Times called the Report \"a momentous document which should and must exercise a profound and immediate influence on the direction of social change in Britain\", while the Manchester Guardian described it as \"a big and fine thing\". The Daily Telegraph said it was a consummation of the revolution begun by David Lloyd George in 1911. The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, said it was \"the first time anyone had set out to embody the whole spirit of the Christian ethic in an Act of Parliament\".\n\nA Parliamentary debate on the Report was planned for February 1943: the Cabinet appointed the Lord President of the Council, Sir John Anderson, to chair a committee to consider the Report and to set out the government's line. In the Commons debate the government announced they would not implement the Report immediately. The Tory Reform Committee, consisting of 45 Conservative MPs, demanded the founding of a Ministry of Social Security immediately. At the division at the end of the debate, 97 Labour MPs, 11 Independents, 9 Liberals, 3 Independent Labour Party MPs and 1 Communist voted against the government. A Ministry of Information Home Intelligence report found that after the debate the left-wing section of the public were disappointed but that \"an approving minority\" thought that the government was correct to wait until the post-war financial situation was known before making a decision. An opinion poll by the British Institute of Public Opinion found that 29% were satisfied with the government's attitude to the Report; 47% were dissatisfied; 24% \"didn't know\".\n\nWinston Churchill gave a broadcast on 21 March 1943 entitled \"After the War\", where he warned the public not to impose \"great new expenditure on the State without any relation to the circumstances which might prevail at the time\" and said there would be \"a four-year plan\" of post-war reconstruction \"to cover five or six large measures of a practical character\" which would be put to the electorate after the war and implemented by a new government. These measures were \"national compulsory insurance for all classes for all purposes from the cradle to the grave\"; the abolition of unemployment by government policies which would \"exercise a balancing influence upon development which can be turned on or off as circumstances require\"; \"a broadening field for State ownership and enterprise\"; new housing; major reforms to education; and largely expanded health and welfare services. Churchill's commitment to creating a welfare state was limited: he and the Conservative Party opposed much of the implementation of the Beveridge Report, including voting against the founding of the NHS.\n\nThe Labour Party won the 1945 general election on a platform that promised to address Beveridge's five Giant Evils. The report's recommendations were implemented through a series of Acts of Parliament (namely the National Insurance Act 1946, the National Assistance Act 1948, and the National Health Service Act 1946) which founded the modern British welfare state. Labour deviated from Beveridge in the state's role: their leaders opposed Beveridge's idea of a National Health Service run through local health centres and regional hospital administrations, preferring a state-run body. Beveridge complained about this: \"For Ernest Bevin, with his trade-union background of unskilled workers... social insurance was less important than bargaining about wages.\" Bevin derided the Beveridge Report as a \"Social Ambulance Scheme\" and followed the Coalition Government's view that it should not be implemented until the end of the war (he was furious in February 1943 when a large number of Labour back-benchers ignored their leaders and voted against delay in implementing Beveridge).\n\nWartime changes\nThe war years saw great improvements in working conditions and welfare provisions, which paved the way for the postwar UK Welfare State. Infant, child, and maternity services were expanded, while the Official Food Policy Committee (chaired by the deputy PM and Labour leader Clement Attlee) approved grants of fuel and subsidised milk to mothers and to children under the age of five in June 1940. A month later, the Board of Education decided that free school meals should become more widely available. By February 1945, 73% of children received milk in school, compared with 50% in July 1940. Free vaccination against diphtheria was also provided for children at school. In addition, the Town and Country Planning Act 1944 gave consideration to those areas damaged in bombing raids and enabled local authorities to clear slums, while the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act passed that same year made £150 million available for the construction of temporary dwellings.\n\nTo improve conditions for the elderly, supplementary pensions were introduced in 1940. In 1943, there were further improvements in rates and conditions for those in receipt of supplementary pensions and unemployment assistance. Food prices were stabilised in December 1939, initially as temporary measure, but this was made permanent in August 1940, while both milk and meals were provided at subsidised prices, or free in those cases of real need.\n\nIn July 1940, increased Treasury grants led to an improvement in the supply of milk and meals in schools. The number of meals taken doubled within a year, and take-up of school milk increased by 50%. By 1945, roughly 33% of all children ate at school compared with just 3.3% (one in thirty) in 1940, while those taking milk increased from about 50% to roughly 75%. In 1940, a national milk scheme was launched, which provided a pint of milk at about half price for all children under the age of five, and for expectant or nursing mothers. The take-up rate was such that, by 1944, 95% of those eligible had participated in the scheme. The government's general food policy that priority groups like young children and mothers were not just entitled to essentials like milk, but actually received supplies as well. Evacuation during the course of the war also revealed, to more prosperous Britons, the extent of deprivation in society. Historian Derek Fraser noted that evacuation became \"the most important subject in the social history of the war because it revealed, to the whole people, the black spots in its social life.\"\n\nAn Emergency Hospital Service was introduced, which provided free treatment to casualties (a definition which included war evacuees), while rationing led to significant improvements in the diets of poor families. As noted by Richard Titmuss,\n\nImplementation\nThe Labour Party eventually also adopted the Beveridge proposals, and after their victory in the 1945 general election, they proceeded to implement many social policies, which became known as the Welfare State. These included the Family Allowances Act 1945, National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts 1946 and 1948, National Insurance Acts 1946 and 1949, National Health Service Act 1946, Pensions (Increase) Act 1947, Landlord and Tenant (Rent Control) Act 1949.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n \n \n \n Harris, Jose. William Beveridge: a biography (1997) online\n \n \n Robertson, David Brian. \"Policy entrepreneurs and policy divergence: John R. Commons and William Beveridge.\" Social Service Review 62.3 (1988): 504-531.\n Sugita, Yoneyuki. \"The Beveridge Report and Japan.\" Social work in public health 29.2 (2014): 148-161.\n Whiteside, Noel. \"The Beveridge Report and its implementation: A revolutionary project?.\" Histoire@ Politique 3 (2014): 24-37. online\n\nFurther reading \nImage of the Report on the Parliamentary Website\n\nExternal links\nFull text of the report\nThe Beveridge Report and the Postwar Reforms by the Policy Studies Institute\n\n1942 documents\n1942 in the United Kingdom\nFood policy in the United Kingdom\n1942 in politics\nNovember 1942 events\nWelfare state in the United Kingdom"
] |
[
"William Beveridge",
"Report on social insurance",
"When did William Beveridge write a report on social insurance?",
"The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942."
] |
C_5276166e779d4662add78cf02f20871a_0
|
Was this report based on social insurance in England?
| 2 |
Was William Beveridge's 1942 Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services based on social insurance in England?
|
William Beveridge
|
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly. The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health. Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods. Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed how this goal might be gained. Alternative measures for achieving it included Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.
He built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges, and later as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.
Beveridge published widely on unemployment and social security, his most notable works being: Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), Pillars of Security (1943), Power and Influence (1953) and A Defence of Free Learning (1959). He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP (for Berwick-upon-Tweed); following his defeat in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords where he served as the leader of the Liberal peers.
Early life and education
Beveridge, the eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian Civil Service officer and District Judge, and scholar Annette Ackroyd, was born in Rangpur, British India (now Rangpur, Bangladesh), on 5 March 1879.
Beveridge's mother had, with Elizabeth Malleson, founded the Working Women's College in Queen Square, London in 1864. She met and married Henry Beveridge in Calcutta where she had gone in 1873 to open a school for Indian girls. William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school near the market town of Godalming in Surrey, followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he studied Mathematics and Classics, obtaining a first class degree in both. He later studied law.
While Beveridge's mother had been a member of the Stourbridge Unitarian community, his father was an early humanist and positivist activist and "an ardent disciple" of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Comte's ideas of a secular religion of humanity were a prominent influence in the household and would exert a lasting influence on Beveridge's thinking. Beveridge himself became a "materialist agnostic", in his words.
Life and career
After leaving university, Beveridge initially became a lawyer. He became interested in the social services and wrote about the subject for the Morning Post newspaper. His interest in the causes of unemployment began in 1903 when he worked at Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London. There he worked closely with Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and was influenced by their theories of social reform, becoming active in promoting old age pensions, free school meals, and campaigning for a national system of labour exchanges.
In 1908, now considered to be Britain's leading authority on unemployment insurance, he was introduced by Beatrice Webb to Winston Churchill, who had recently been promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Churchill invited Beveridge to join the Board of Trade, and he organised the implementation of the national system of labour exchanges and National Insurance to combat unemployment and poverty. During the First World War he was involved in mobilising and controlling manpower. After the war, he was knighted and made permanent secretary to the Ministry of Food.
In 1919 he left the civil service to become director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Over the next few years he served on several commissions and committees on social policy. He was so highly influenced by the Fabian Society socialists – in particular by Beatrice Webb, with whom he worked on the 1909 Poor Laws report – that he could be considered one of their number. He published academic economic works including his early work on unemployment (1909). The Fabians made him a director of the LSE in 1919, a post he retained until 1937. During his time as Director, he jousted with Edwin Cannan and Lionel Robbins, who were trying to steer the LSE away from its Fabian roots. From 1929 he led the International scientific committee on price history, contributing a large historical study, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (1939).
In 1933 he helped set up the Academic Assistance Council. This helped prominent academics who had been dismissed from their posts on grounds of race, religion or political position to escape Nazi persecution. In 1937 Beveridge was appointed Master of University College, Oxford.
Wartime work
Three years later, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour in the wartime National government, invited Beveridge to take charge of the Welfare department of his Ministry. Beveridge refused, but declared an interest in organising British manpower in wartime (Beveridge had come to favour a strong system of centralised planning). Bevin was reluctant to let Beveridge have his way but did commission him to work on a relatively unimportant manpower survey from June 1940 and so Beveridge became a temporary civil servant. Neither Bevin nor the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Sir Thomas Phillips liked working with Beveridge as both found him conceited.
His work on manpower culminated in his chairmanship of the Committee on Skilled Men in the Services which reported to the War Cabinet in August and October 1941. Two recommendations of the committee were implemented: Army recruits were enlisted for their first six weeks into the General Service Corps, so that their subsequent posting could take account of their skills and the Army's needs; and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was created.
Report on social insurance and views on full employment
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly.
The report to Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health.
Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.
Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed the view that it was "absurd" to "look to individual employers for maintenance of demand and full employment." These things must be "undertaken by the State under the supervision and pressure of democracy." Measures for achieving full-employment might include Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society.
Later career
Later in 1944, Beveridge, who had recently joined the Liberal Party, was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election to succeed George Charles Grey, who had died on the battlefield in Normandy, France, on the first day of Operation Bluecoat on 30 July 1944. Beveridge briefly served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, during which time he was prominent in the Radical Action group, which called for the party to withdraw from the war-time electoral pact and adopt more radical policies. However, he lost his seat at the 1945 general election, when he was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Robert Thorp, by a majority of 1,962 votes.
Clement Attlee and the Labour Party defeated Winston Churchill's Conservative Party in that election and the new Labour Government began the process of implementing Beveridge's proposals that provided the basis of the modern Welfare State. Attlee announced he would introduce the Welfare State outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with taxpayer funded medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide "social security" so that the population would be protected from the "cradle to the grave". The new system was partly built upon the National Insurance scheme set up by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1911.
In 1946, Beveridge was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Beveridge, of Tuggal in the County of Northumberland, and eventually became leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He was the author of Power and Influence (1953). He was the President of the charity Attend (then the National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends) from 1952 to 1962.
Eugenics
Beveridge was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state "but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights – including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood." Whilst director of the London School of Economics, Beveridge attempted to create a Department of Social Biology. Though never fully established, Lancelot Hogben, a fierce anti-eugenicist, was named its chair. Former LSE director John Ashworth speculated that discord between those in favour and those against the serious study of eugenics led to Beveridge's departure from the school in 1937.
In the 1940s, Beveridge credited the Eugenics Society with promoting the children's allowance, which was incorporated into his 1942 report. However, whilst he held views in support of eugenics, he did not believe the report had any overall "eugenic value". Professor Danny Dorling said that "there is not even the faintest hint" of eugenic thought in the report.
Dennis Sewell states that "On the day the House of Commons met to debate the Beveridge Report in 1943, its author slipped out of the gallery early in the evening to address a meeting of the Eugenics Society at the Mansion House. ... His report he was keen to reassure them, was eugenic in intent and would prove so in effect. ... The idea of child allowances had been developed within the society with the twin aims of encouraging the educated professional classes to have more children than they currently did and, at the same time, to limit the number of children born to poor households. For both effects to be properly stimulated, the allowance needed to be graded: middle-class parents receiving more generous payments than working-class parents. ... The Home Secretary had that very day signalled that the government planned a flat rate of child allowance. But Beveridge, alluding to the problem of an overall declining birth rate, argued that even the flat rate would be eugenic. Nevertheless, he held out hope for the purists." 'Sir William made it clear that it was in his view not only possible but desirable that graded family allowance schemes, applicable to families in the higher income brackets, be administered concurrently with his flat rate scheme,' reported the Eugenics Review.
Personal life
Beveridge married the mathematician Janet Philip, daughter of William Philip and widow of David Mair, in 1942. They had worked together in the civil service and at LSE, and she was instrumental in the drafting and publicising of the Beveridge Report.
He died at his home on 16 March 1963, aged 84, and was buried in Thockrington churchyard, on the Northumbrian moors. His barony became extinct upon his death. His last words were "I have a thousand things to do".
Commemoration
Beveridge Street in the Christchurch Central City was named for William Beveridge. It was one of 120 streets that were renamed in 1948 by Peter Fraser's Labour Government of New Zealand.
In November 2018, English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque commemorating Beveridge at 27 Bedford Gardens in Campden Hill, London W8 7EF where he lived from 1914 until 1921.
University College, Oxford's society for students studying and tutors involved in the study of Philosophy, Politics and Economics was recently renamed the Beveridge Society in his honour.
Works
Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909. online (Archive.org)
'Wages in the Winchester Manors', Economic History Review, Vol. VII, 1936–37.
Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.
Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (The Beveridge Report)
The Pillars of Security and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses, 1943, republished 2014.
Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.
The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.
Why I am a Liberal, 1945.
The Price of Peace, 1945.
Power and Influence, 1953.
"India Called Them," George Allen & Unwin, 1947
Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society by G. D. H. Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L. F. Easterbrook, Sir William Beveridge, and Harold J. Laski (Not illustrated with 127 text pages).
'Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era', Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. VIII, 1955.
See also
Aneurin Bevan, Clement Attlee's Health Minister
Beveridge curve – the relationship between unemployment and the job vacancy rate
List of liberal theorists
List of British university chancellors and vice-chancellors
List of United Kingdom MPs with the shortest service
List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Resources
Jose Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1997. .
Julien Demade, Produire un fait scientifique. Beveridge et le Comité international d'histoire des prix, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2018. .
William Beveridge's archives are held at the London School of Economics.
Photographs of William Beveridge held by LSE Archives
Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006.
References
Further reading
Addison, Paul. The Road To 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (1977) pp 211–28.
Harris, Jose. William Beveridge: a biography (1997) online.
Hills, John et al. eds. Beveridge and Social Security: an International Retrospective (1994)
Robertson, David Brian. "Policy entrepreneurs and policy divergence: John R. Commons and William Beveridge." Social Service Review 62.3 (1988): 504–531.
Sugita, Yoneyuki. "The Beveridge Report and Japan." Social work in public health 29.2 (2014): 148–161.
Whiteside, Noel. "The Beveridge Report and its implementation: A revolutionary project?." Histoire@ Politique 3 (2014): 24–37. online
Primary sources
Williams, Ioan, and Karel Williams, eds. A Beveridge Reader (2014); (Works of William H. Beveridge).
External links
Sir William Beveridge Foundation
Spartacus Educational on William Beveridge and The Beveridge Report
Full text of the report
BBC information
BBC Radio 4, Great Lives – Downloadable 30 minute discussion of William Beveridge
Catalogue of William Beveridge's papers at the London School of Economics (LSE Archives)
Cataloguing the Beveridge papers at LSE Archives
1879 births
1963 deaths
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of University College, Oxford
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
British agnostics
British humanists
British economists
British reformers
British social liberals
Civil servants in the Board of Trade
English people of Scottish descent
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
Liberal Party (UK) hereditary peers
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Masters of University College, Oxford
People educated at Charterhouse School
People associated with the London School of Economics
Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Food
Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
British social reformers
UK MPs 1935–1945
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Peers created by George VI
| false |
[
"The Commission on Social Welfare (CSW) was a commission in Ireland that from 1983 to 1986 reviewed social welfare in the country. Social security policy between 1987 and 1994 was heavily influenced by the findings of the CSW.\n\nThe final report of the Commission recommended raising social welfare payments. For social welfare payments to be adequate, they \"must prevent poverty, and in our view poverty must be judged in the light of actual living standards,\" the report concluded.\n\nBackground\n\nA social welfare provision refers to any program which seeks to provide a minimum level of income, service or other support for many marginalized groups such as the poor, elderly, and disabled people. Social welfare programs are undertaken by governments as well as non-governmental organizations (NGO's). Social welfare payments and services are typically provided at the expense of taxpayers generally, funded by benefactors, or by compulsory enrollment of the poor themselves.\n\nEstablishment\nIn 1982 the National Social Services Board in its pre-budget submission called for the establishment of a commission to carry out a fundamental review of the social welfare system. A commitment to establish such a commission was part of the program of the Fine Gael/Labour coalition government that came into office in December 1982. The Commission on Social Welfare was established in 1983.\n\nCommission report\nThe Commission's report was published in 1986. The reforms recommended were within the existing system rather than replacing the system and creating a new one. The four key reforms proposed by the Commission concerned the payment structure, social insurance, social assistance and financing.\n\nThe adequacy of payments was the most important issue the Commission considered. By using a number of indicators, the Commission estimated that a minimally adequate income for a single person in 1985 was 50 to 60 pounds per week.\n\nThe Commission favored keeping the social insurance system. It recommended that all income earners should contribute to and benefit where appropriate from social insurance and favored a widening of coverage for insurance.\n\nThe Commission recommended that there should be a comprehensive social assistance scheme for those who, for whatever reason, do not qualify for social insurance. The main condition would be the establishment of an income.\n\nOn the grounds of redistribution the Commission concluded that the income ceiling on contributions should be gradually abolished.\n\nReferences\n\n1976 in Ireland\nPolitical history of Ireland\nWelfare in the Republic of Ireland\nSocial history of Ireland",
"Glitne was a general insurance company based in Norway. It was named after Glitnir in Norse mythology.\n\nIt was founded as Folkepensjonskassen Glitne on 17 December 1889, and was an early measure for social security. It merged with Gjensidige in 1968.\n\nReferences\n\nInsurance companies of Norway\n\nFinancial services companies established in 1889\n1889 establishments in Norway\nFinancial services companies disestablished in 1968"
] |
[
"William Beveridge",
"Report on social insurance",
"When did William Beveridge write a report on social insurance?",
"The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942.",
"Was this report based on social insurance in England?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_5276166e779d4662add78cf02f20871a_0
|
What was one of his findings regarding social insurance?
| 3 |
What was one of William Beveridge's findings regarding social insurance?
|
William Beveridge
|
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly. The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health. Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods. Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed how this goal might be gained. Alternative measures for achieving it included Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society. CANNOTANSWER
|
It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution.
|
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.
He built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges, and later as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.
Beveridge published widely on unemployment and social security, his most notable works being: Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), Pillars of Security (1943), Power and Influence (1953) and A Defence of Free Learning (1959). He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP (for Berwick-upon-Tweed); following his defeat in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords where he served as the leader of the Liberal peers.
Early life and education
Beveridge, the eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian Civil Service officer and District Judge, and scholar Annette Ackroyd, was born in Rangpur, British India (now Rangpur, Bangladesh), on 5 March 1879.
Beveridge's mother had, with Elizabeth Malleson, founded the Working Women's College in Queen Square, London in 1864. She met and married Henry Beveridge in Calcutta where she had gone in 1873 to open a school for Indian girls. William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school near the market town of Godalming in Surrey, followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he studied Mathematics and Classics, obtaining a first class degree in both. He later studied law.
While Beveridge's mother had been a member of the Stourbridge Unitarian community, his father was an early humanist and positivist activist and "an ardent disciple" of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Comte's ideas of a secular religion of humanity were a prominent influence in the household and would exert a lasting influence on Beveridge's thinking. Beveridge himself became a "materialist agnostic", in his words.
Life and career
After leaving university, Beveridge initially became a lawyer. He became interested in the social services and wrote about the subject for the Morning Post newspaper. His interest in the causes of unemployment began in 1903 when he worked at Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London. There he worked closely with Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and was influenced by their theories of social reform, becoming active in promoting old age pensions, free school meals, and campaigning for a national system of labour exchanges.
In 1908, now considered to be Britain's leading authority on unemployment insurance, he was introduced by Beatrice Webb to Winston Churchill, who had recently been promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Churchill invited Beveridge to join the Board of Trade, and he organised the implementation of the national system of labour exchanges and National Insurance to combat unemployment and poverty. During the First World War he was involved in mobilising and controlling manpower. After the war, he was knighted and made permanent secretary to the Ministry of Food.
In 1919 he left the civil service to become director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Over the next few years he served on several commissions and committees on social policy. He was so highly influenced by the Fabian Society socialists – in particular by Beatrice Webb, with whom he worked on the 1909 Poor Laws report – that he could be considered one of their number. He published academic economic works including his early work on unemployment (1909). The Fabians made him a director of the LSE in 1919, a post he retained until 1937. During his time as Director, he jousted with Edwin Cannan and Lionel Robbins, who were trying to steer the LSE away from its Fabian roots. From 1929 he led the International scientific committee on price history, contributing a large historical study, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (1939).
In 1933 he helped set up the Academic Assistance Council. This helped prominent academics who had been dismissed from their posts on grounds of race, religion or political position to escape Nazi persecution. In 1937 Beveridge was appointed Master of University College, Oxford.
Wartime work
Three years later, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour in the wartime National government, invited Beveridge to take charge of the Welfare department of his Ministry. Beveridge refused, but declared an interest in organising British manpower in wartime (Beveridge had come to favour a strong system of centralised planning). Bevin was reluctant to let Beveridge have his way but did commission him to work on a relatively unimportant manpower survey from June 1940 and so Beveridge became a temporary civil servant. Neither Bevin nor the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Sir Thomas Phillips liked working with Beveridge as both found him conceited.
His work on manpower culminated in his chairmanship of the Committee on Skilled Men in the Services which reported to the War Cabinet in August and October 1941. Two recommendations of the committee were implemented: Army recruits were enlisted for their first six weeks into the General Service Corps, so that their subsequent posting could take account of their skills and the Army's needs; and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was created.
Report on social insurance and views on full employment
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly.
The report to Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health.
Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.
Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed the view that it was "absurd" to "look to individual employers for maintenance of demand and full employment." These things must be "undertaken by the State under the supervision and pressure of democracy." Measures for achieving full-employment might include Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society.
Later career
Later in 1944, Beveridge, who had recently joined the Liberal Party, was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election to succeed George Charles Grey, who had died on the battlefield in Normandy, France, on the first day of Operation Bluecoat on 30 July 1944. Beveridge briefly served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, during which time he was prominent in the Radical Action group, which called for the party to withdraw from the war-time electoral pact and adopt more radical policies. However, he lost his seat at the 1945 general election, when he was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Robert Thorp, by a majority of 1,962 votes.
Clement Attlee and the Labour Party defeated Winston Churchill's Conservative Party in that election and the new Labour Government began the process of implementing Beveridge's proposals that provided the basis of the modern Welfare State. Attlee announced he would introduce the Welfare State outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with taxpayer funded medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide "social security" so that the population would be protected from the "cradle to the grave". The new system was partly built upon the National Insurance scheme set up by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1911.
In 1946, Beveridge was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Beveridge, of Tuggal in the County of Northumberland, and eventually became leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He was the author of Power and Influence (1953). He was the President of the charity Attend (then the National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends) from 1952 to 1962.
Eugenics
Beveridge was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state "but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights – including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood." Whilst director of the London School of Economics, Beveridge attempted to create a Department of Social Biology. Though never fully established, Lancelot Hogben, a fierce anti-eugenicist, was named its chair. Former LSE director John Ashworth speculated that discord between those in favour and those against the serious study of eugenics led to Beveridge's departure from the school in 1937.
In the 1940s, Beveridge credited the Eugenics Society with promoting the children's allowance, which was incorporated into his 1942 report. However, whilst he held views in support of eugenics, he did not believe the report had any overall "eugenic value". Professor Danny Dorling said that "there is not even the faintest hint" of eugenic thought in the report.
Dennis Sewell states that "On the day the House of Commons met to debate the Beveridge Report in 1943, its author slipped out of the gallery early in the evening to address a meeting of the Eugenics Society at the Mansion House. ... His report he was keen to reassure them, was eugenic in intent and would prove so in effect. ... The idea of child allowances had been developed within the society with the twin aims of encouraging the educated professional classes to have more children than they currently did and, at the same time, to limit the number of children born to poor households. For both effects to be properly stimulated, the allowance needed to be graded: middle-class parents receiving more generous payments than working-class parents. ... The Home Secretary had that very day signalled that the government planned a flat rate of child allowance. But Beveridge, alluding to the problem of an overall declining birth rate, argued that even the flat rate would be eugenic. Nevertheless, he held out hope for the purists." 'Sir William made it clear that it was in his view not only possible but desirable that graded family allowance schemes, applicable to families in the higher income brackets, be administered concurrently with his flat rate scheme,' reported the Eugenics Review.
Personal life
Beveridge married the mathematician Janet Philip, daughter of William Philip and widow of David Mair, in 1942. They had worked together in the civil service and at LSE, and she was instrumental in the drafting and publicising of the Beveridge Report.
He died at his home on 16 March 1963, aged 84, and was buried in Thockrington churchyard, on the Northumbrian moors. His barony became extinct upon his death. His last words were "I have a thousand things to do".
Commemoration
Beveridge Street in the Christchurch Central City was named for William Beveridge. It was one of 120 streets that were renamed in 1948 by Peter Fraser's Labour Government of New Zealand.
In November 2018, English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque commemorating Beveridge at 27 Bedford Gardens in Campden Hill, London W8 7EF where he lived from 1914 until 1921.
University College, Oxford's society for students studying and tutors involved in the study of Philosophy, Politics and Economics was recently renamed the Beveridge Society in his honour.
Works
Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909. online (Archive.org)
'Wages in the Winchester Manors', Economic History Review, Vol. VII, 1936–37.
Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.
Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (The Beveridge Report)
The Pillars of Security and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses, 1943, republished 2014.
Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.
The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.
Why I am a Liberal, 1945.
The Price of Peace, 1945.
Power and Influence, 1953.
"India Called Them," George Allen & Unwin, 1947
Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society by G. D. H. Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L. F. Easterbrook, Sir William Beveridge, and Harold J. Laski (Not illustrated with 127 text pages).
'Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era', Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. VIII, 1955.
See also
Aneurin Bevan, Clement Attlee's Health Minister
Beveridge curve – the relationship between unemployment and the job vacancy rate
List of liberal theorists
List of British university chancellors and vice-chancellors
List of United Kingdom MPs with the shortest service
List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Resources
Jose Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1997. .
Julien Demade, Produire un fait scientifique. Beveridge et le Comité international d'histoire des prix, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2018. .
William Beveridge's archives are held at the London School of Economics.
Photographs of William Beveridge held by LSE Archives
Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006.
References
Further reading
Addison, Paul. The Road To 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (1977) pp 211–28.
Harris, Jose. William Beveridge: a biography (1997) online.
Hills, John et al. eds. Beveridge and Social Security: an International Retrospective (1994)
Robertson, David Brian. "Policy entrepreneurs and policy divergence: John R. Commons and William Beveridge." Social Service Review 62.3 (1988): 504–531.
Sugita, Yoneyuki. "The Beveridge Report and Japan." Social work in public health 29.2 (2014): 148–161.
Whiteside, Noel. "The Beveridge Report and its implementation: A revolutionary project?." Histoire@ Politique 3 (2014): 24–37. online
Primary sources
Williams, Ioan, and Karel Williams, eds. A Beveridge Reader (2014); (Works of William H. Beveridge).
External links
Sir William Beveridge Foundation
Spartacus Educational on William Beveridge and The Beveridge Report
Full text of the report
BBC information
BBC Radio 4, Great Lives – Downloadable 30 minute discussion of William Beveridge
Catalogue of William Beveridge's papers at the London School of Economics (LSE Archives)
Cataloguing the Beveridge papers at LSE Archives
1879 births
1963 deaths
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of University College, Oxford
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
British agnostics
British humanists
British economists
British reformers
British social liberals
Civil servants in the Board of Trade
English people of Scottish descent
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
Liberal Party (UK) hereditary peers
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Masters of University College, Oxford
People educated at Charterhouse School
People associated with the London School of Economics
Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Food
Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
British social reformers
UK MPs 1935–1945
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Peers created by George VI
| true |
[
"The Commission on Social Welfare (CSW) was a commission in Ireland that from 1983 to 1986 reviewed social welfare in the country. Social security policy between 1987 and 1994 was heavily influenced by the findings of the CSW.\n\nThe final report of the Commission recommended raising social welfare payments. For social welfare payments to be adequate, they \"must prevent poverty, and in our view poverty must be judged in the light of actual living standards,\" the report concluded.\n\nBackground\n\nA social welfare provision refers to any program which seeks to provide a minimum level of income, service or other support for many marginalized groups such as the poor, elderly, and disabled people. Social welfare programs are undertaken by governments as well as non-governmental organizations (NGO's). Social welfare payments and services are typically provided at the expense of taxpayers generally, funded by benefactors, or by compulsory enrollment of the poor themselves.\n\nEstablishment\nIn 1982 the National Social Services Board in its pre-budget submission called for the establishment of a commission to carry out a fundamental review of the social welfare system. A commitment to establish such a commission was part of the program of the Fine Gael/Labour coalition government that came into office in December 1982. The Commission on Social Welfare was established in 1983.\n\nCommission report\nThe Commission's report was published in 1986. The reforms recommended were within the existing system rather than replacing the system and creating a new one. The four key reforms proposed by the Commission concerned the payment structure, social insurance, social assistance and financing.\n\nThe adequacy of payments was the most important issue the Commission considered. By using a number of indicators, the Commission estimated that a minimally adequate income for a single person in 1985 was 50 to 60 pounds per week.\n\nThe Commission favored keeping the social insurance system. It recommended that all income earners should contribute to and benefit where appropriate from social insurance and favored a widening of coverage for insurance.\n\nThe Commission recommended that there should be a comprehensive social assistance scheme for those who, for whatever reason, do not qualify for social insurance. The main condition would be the establishment of an income.\n\nOn the grounds of redistribution the Commission concluded that the income ceiling on contributions should be gradually abolished.\n\nReferences\n\n1976 in Ireland\nPolitical history of Ireland\nWelfare in the Republic of Ireland\nSocial history of Ireland",
"The Federal Social Court (Bundessozialgericht) is the German federal court of appeals for social security cases, mainly cases concerning the public health insurance, long-term care insurance, pension insurance and occupational accident insurance schemes. Trial courts for these cases are the Sozialgerichte (Social Courts). Appeals against decisions of these courts are heard by the Landessozialgerichte (Superior State Social Courts), before the cases may wind up at the Bundessozialgericht.\n\nThe Bundessozialgericht is located in the city of Kassel.\n\nHistory \nThe Federal Social Court was founded on September 11, 1954 and its first session was on March 23, 1955.\n\nFunction\nThe Federal Social court hears appeals against decisions of the Landessozialgerichte ( Superior State Social Courts) or in special circumstances against decisions of the Sozialgerichte.\n\nOrganisation\nThe Chambers of the Federal Social Court are called Senat. They each consist of 3 Judges and 2 lay judges.\nThe court consists of 14 Chambers. \n\n 1. Senat: public health insurance\n 2. Senat: occupational accident insurance\n 3. Senat: public health insurance, long-term care insurance, social insurance for artists\n 4. Senat: basic needs coverage for people looking for employment \n 5. Senat: statutory pension insurance\n 6. Senat: contracts with dentists and doctors\n 7. Senat: benefits for asylum seekers\n 8. Senat: Sozialhilfe\n 9. Senat: damages, disability, help for blind people\n 10. Senat: pensions for farmers, benefits regarding child care, legal protection against artificially long trials\n 11. Senat: unemployment benefits, and other matters involving the Bundesagentur für Arbeit\n 12. Senat: insurance membership and payments\n 13. Senat: statutory pension insurance\n 14. Senat: basic needs for people looking for employment, §6a+$6b Kindergeldgesetz\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial homepage\n\nGermany\nCourts in Germany\nKassel\n1954 establishments in West Germany\nCourts and tribunals established in 1954"
] |
[
"William Beveridge",
"Report on social insurance",
"When did William Beveridge write a report on social insurance?",
"The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942.",
"Was this report based on social insurance in England?",
"I don't know.",
"What was one of his findings regarding social insurance?",
"It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution."
] |
C_5276166e779d4662add78cf02f20871a_0
|
How did the Parliament respond to the report?
| 4 |
How did the Parliament respond to William Beveridge's 1942 Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services?
|
William Beveridge
|
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly. The Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health. Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods. Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed how this goal might be gained. Alternative measures for achieving it included Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society. CANNOTANSWER
|
Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted.
|
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.
He built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges, and later as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.
Beveridge published widely on unemployment and social security, his most notable works being: Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), Pillars of Security (1943), Power and Influence (1953) and A Defence of Free Learning (1959). He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP (for Berwick-upon-Tweed); following his defeat in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords where he served as the leader of the Liberal peers.
Early life and education
Beveridge, the eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian Civil Service officer and District Judge, and scholar Annette Ackroyd, was born in Rangpur, British India (now Rangpur, Bangladesh), on 5 March 1879.
Beveridge's mother had, with Elizabeth Malleson, founded the Working Women's College in Queen Square, London in 1864. She met and married Henry Beveridge in Calcutta where she had gone in 1873 to open a school for Indian girls. William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school near the market town of Godalming in Surrey, followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he studied Mathematics and Classics, obtaining a first class degree in both. He later studied law.
While Beveridge's mother had been a member of the Stourbridge Unitarian community, his father was an early humanist and positivist activist and "an ardent disciple" of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Comte's ideas of a secular religion of humanity were a prominent influence in the household and would exert a lasting influence on Beveridge's thinking. Beveridge himself became a "materialist agnostic", in his words.
Life and career
After leaving university, Beveridge initially became a lawyer. He became interested in the social services and wrote about the subject for the Morning Post newspaper. His interest in the causes of unemployment began in 1903 when he worked at Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London. There he worked closely with Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and was influenced by their theories of social reform, becoming active in promoting old age pensions, free school meals, and campaigning for a national system of labour exchanges.
In 1908, now considered to be Britain's leading authority on unemployment insurance, he was introduced by Beatrice Webb to Winston Churchill, who had recently been promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Churchill invited Beveridge to join the Board of Trade, and he organised the implementation of the national system of labour exchanges and National Insurance to combat unemployment and poverty. During the First World War he was involved in mobilising and controlling manpower. After the war, he was knighted and made permanent secretary to the Ministry of Food.
In 1919 he left the civil service to become director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Over the next few years he served on several commissions and committees on social policy. He was so highly influenced by the Fabian Society socialists – in particular by Beatrice Webb, with whom he worked on the 1909 Poor Laws report – that he could be considered one of their number. He published academic economic works including his early work on unemployment (1909). The Fabians made him a director of the LSE in 1919, a post he retained until 1937. During his time as Director, he jousted with Edwin Cannan and Lionel Robbins, who were trying to steer the LSE away from its Fabian roots. From 1929 he led the International scientific committee on price history, contributing a large historical study, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (1939).
In 1933 he helped set up the Academic Assistance Council. This helped prominent academics who had been dismissed from their posts on grounds of race, religion or political position to escape Nazi persecution. In 1937 Beveridge was appointed Master of University College, Oxford.
Wartime work
Three years later, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour in the wartime National government, invited Beveridge to take charge of the Welfare department of his Ministry. Beveridge refused, but declared an interest in organising British manpower in wartime (Beveridge had come to favour a strong system of centralised planning). Bevin was reluctant to let Beveridge have his way but did commission him to work on a relatively unimportant manpower survey from June 1940 and so Beveridge became a temporary civil servant. Neither Bevin nor the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Sir Thomas Phillips liked working with Beveridge as both found him conceited.
His work on manpower culminated in his chairmanship of the Committee on Skilled Men in the Services which reported to the War Cabinet in August and October 1941. Two recommendations of the committee were implemented: Army recruits were enlisted for their first six weeks into the General Service Corps, so that their subsequent posting could take account of their skills and the Army's needs; and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was created.
Report on social insurance and views on full employment
An opportunity for Bevin to ease Beveridge out presented itself in May 1941 when Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced the formation of a committee of officials to survey existing social insurance and allied services, and to make recommendations. Although Brown had made the announcement, the inquiry had largely been urged by Minister without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, and Bevin suggested to Greenwood making Beveridge chairman of the committee. Beveridge, at first uninterested and seeing the committee as a distraction from his work on manpower, accepted only reluctantly.
The report to Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in November 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the "five giants on the road of reconstruction" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort, a policy already being worked on in the Ministry of Health.
Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He appealed to conservatives and other sceptics by arguing that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions out of corporate ledgers and onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and thus more motivated and productive workers who would also serve as a great source of demand for British goods.
Beveridge saw full employment (defined as unemployment of no more than 3%) as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. Full Employment in a Free Society, written in 1944 expressed the view that it was "absurd" to "look to individual employers for maintenance of demand and full employment." These things must be "undertaken by the State under the supervision and pressure of democracy." Measures for achieving full-employment might include Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice, and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. He believed that the discovery of objective socio-economic laws could solve the problems of society.
Later career
Later in 1944, Beveridge, who had recently joined the Liberal Party, was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election to succeed George Charles Grey, who had died on the battlefield in Normandy, France, on the first day of Operation Bluecoat on 30 July 1944. Beveridge briefly served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, during which time he was prominent in the Radical Action group, which called for the party to withdraw from the war-time electoral pact and adopt more radical policies. However, he lost his seat at the 1945 general election, when he was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Robert Thorp, by a majority of 1,962 votes.
Clement Attlee and the Labour Party defeated Winston Churchill's Conservative Party in that election and the new Labour Government began the process of implementing Beveridge's proposals that provided the basis of the modern Welfare State. Attlee announced he would introduce the Welfare State outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with taxpayer funded medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide "social security" so that the population would be protected from the "cradle to the grave". The new system was partly built upon the National Insurance scheme set up by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1911.
In 1946, Beveridge was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Beveridge, of Tuggal in the County of Northumberland, and eventually became leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He was the author of Power and Influence (1953). He was the President of the charity Attend (then the National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends) from 1952 to 1962.
Eugenics
Beveridge was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state "but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights – including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood." Whilst director of the London School of Economics, Beveridge attempted to create a Department of Social Biology. Though never fully established, Lancelot Hogben, a fierce anti-eugenicist, was named its chair. Former LSE director John Ashworth speculated that discord between those in favour and those against the serious study of eugenics led to Beveridge's departure from the school in 1937.
In the 1940s, Beveridge credited the Eugenics Society with promoting the children's allowance, which was incorporated into his 1942 report. However, whilst he held views in support of eugenics, he did not believe the report had any overall "eugenic value". Professor Danny Dorling said that "there is not even the faintest hint" of eugenic thought in the report.
Dennis Sewell states that "On the day the House of Commons met to debate the Beveridge Report in 1943, its author slipped out of the gallery early in the evening to address a meeting of the Eugenics Society at the Mansion House. ... His report he was keen to reassure them, was eugenic in intent and would prove so in effect. ... The idea of child allowances had been developed within the society with the twin aims of encouraging the educated professional classes to have more children than they currently did and, at the same time, to limit the number of children born to poor households. For both effects to be properly stimulated, the allowance needed to be graded: middle-class parents receiving more generous payments than working-class parents. ... The Home Secretary had that very day signalled that the government planned a flat rate of child allowance. But Beveridge, alluding to the problem of an overall declining birth rate, argued that even the flat rate would be eugenic. Nevertheless, he held out hope for the purists." 'Sir William made it clear that it was in his view not only possible but desirable that graded family allowance schemes, applicable to families in the higher income brackets, be administered concurrently with his flat rate scheme,' reported the Eugenics Review.
Personal life
Beveridge married the mathematician Janet Philip, daughter of William Philip and widow of David Mair, in 1942. They had worked together in the civil service and at LSE, and she was instrumental in the drafting and publicising of the Beveridge Report.
He died at his home on 16 March 1963, aged 84, and was buried in Thockrington churchyard, on the Northumbrian moors. His barony became extinct upon his death. His last words were "I have a thousand things to do".
Commemoration
Beveridge Street in the Christchurch Central City was named for William Beveridge. It was one of 120 streets that were renamed in 1948 by Peter Fraser's Labour Government of New Zealand.
In November 2018, English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque commemorating Beveridge at 27 Bedford Gardens in Campden Hill, London W8 7EF where he lived from 1914 until 1921.
University College, Oxford's society for students studying and tutors involved in the study of Philosophy, Politics and Economics was recently renamed the Beveridge Society in his honour.
Works
Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909. online (Archive.org)
'Wages in the Winchester Manors', Economic History Review, Vol. VII, 1936–37.
Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.
Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (The Beveridge Report)
The Pillars of Security and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses, 1943, republished 2014.
Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.
The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.
Why I am a Liberal, 1945.
The Price of Peace, 1945.
Power and Influence, 1953.
"India Called Them," George Allen & Unwin, 1947
Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society by G. D. H. Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L. F. Easterbrook, Sir William Beveridge, and Harold J. Laski (Not illustrated with 127 text pages).
'Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era', Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. VIII, 1955.
See also
Aneurin Bevan, Clement Attlee's Health Minister
Beveridge curve – the relationship between unemployment and the job vacancy rate
List of liberal theorists
List of British university chancellors and vice-chancellors
List of United Kingdom MPs with the shortest service
List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Resources
Jose Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1997. .
Julien Demade, Produire un fait scientifique. Beveridge et le Comité international d'histoire des prix, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2018. .
William Beveridge's archives are held at the London School of Economics.
Photographs of William Beveridge held by LSE Archives
Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006.
References
Further reading
Addison, Paul. The Road To 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (1977) pp 211–28.
Harris, Jose. William Beveridge: a biography (1997) online.
Hills, John et al. eds. Beveridge and Social Security: an International Retrospective (1994)
Robertson, David Brian. "Policy entrepreneurs and policy divergence: John R. Commons and William Beveridge." Social Service Review 62.3 (1988): 504–531.
Sugita, Yoneyuki. "The Beveridge Report and Japan." Social work in public health 29.2 (2014): 148–161.
Whiteside, Noel. "The Beveridge Report and its implementation: A revolutionary project?." Histoire@ Politique 3 (2014): 24–37. online
Primary sources
Williams, Ioan, and Karel Williams, eds. A Beveridge Reader (2014); (Works of William H. Beveridge).
External links
Sir William Beveridge Foundation
Spartacus Educational on William Beveridge and The Beveridge Report
Full text of the report
BBC information
BBC Radio 4, Great Lives – Downloadable 30 minute discussion of William Beveridge
Catalogue of William Beveridge's papers at the London School of Economics (LSE Archives)
Cataloguing the Beveridge papers at LSE Archives
1879 births
1963 deaths
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of University College, Oxford
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
British agnostics
British humanists
British economists
British reformers
British social liberals
Civil servants in the Board of Trade
English people of Scottish descent
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
Liberal Party (UK) hereditary peers
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Masters of University College, Oxford
People educated at Charterhouse School
People associated with the London School of Economics
Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Food
Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
British social reformers
UK MPs 1935–1945
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Vice-Chancellors of the University of London
Peers created by George VI
| true |
[
"In 2007 the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, set up a special working group on parliamentary reform. It was chaired by Dagmar Roth-Behrendt MEP (member for Germany) and was to improve the efficiency and image of the European Parliament. Some ideas included livening up the plenary sessions and a State of the Union debate. It is due to produce a final report in July 2008, and put the recommendations into practice by the 2009 elections.\n\nFirst proposals\nOne of the group's key reform ideas, extra debates on topical issues, was rejected by MEPs (mainly from the centre-right) in July 2007 over fears it would disrupt committee work while attracting very few attendees. In response, ALDE leader Graham Watson MEP (member for South West England) withdrew from the group.\n\nMEPs did however back a proposal to use the European symbols more often in the Parliament. This comes after the European Council's agreement for the Treaty of Lisbon dropped the provisions of the Constitution which would have given the symbols official status. Jo Leinen MEP (member for Germany) suggested that the Parliament take the avant-garde in using the flag and anthem, the latter being rarely used in Parliament. The Parliament first adopted the European flag in 1983, three years before it was formally adopted by the Communities as a whole.\n\nInterim report\nAn interim report of the reform group was presented in September 2007. It proposes a number of changes to the house, including: Cutting down the debating time for texts with no legislative effect. In 2006, 92 \"own initiative\" reports (commenting rather than legislating) were tables and 22% of debating time was spent debating such reports, while only 18% was spent on legislative bills; it also proposed being more selective about inviting guest speakers to the house, the group stated that the new practice of inviting numerous heads of state to speak at the Parliament interrupted the normal legislative work of the house; a further idea to cap the number of amendments to documents was voted down.\n\nIt is hoped the changes will make the Parliament more political, however Graham Watson, who earlier left the group, stated that he doubts the grand coalition between PES and EPP-ED can get it approved due to opposition from conservative members who voted down the earlier proposals. Other members such as the co-chair of ID, Jens-Peter Bonde MEP (member for Denmark), wanted more radical proposals but Bonde did vote for the report stating that \"it is psychologically important to show that we want to become a more political parliament.\"\n\nFinal report\nThe final report, due to be voted on in the second week of July 2008, is being put forward by Richard Corbett MEP (PES member for Yorkshire and the Humber) who aims to gear Parliament's work towards areas where it actually has legislative powers. As described above, time on legislative bills would be increased at the expense of own initiative reports. These reports would be amended and voted on in the Committees with the plenary having a single vote on the document (plus a single vote for any alternative presented by group, but not line for line amendment).\n\nIn an effort to liven up debates and make the work more visible, the rapporteur for a legislative report would introduce, respond to and sum up a debate. There would also be new limits on written questions; at present, unlike other parliaments, there are no limits on the questions an MEP can ask the Commission during question time. The Commission has three weeks to respond to urgent questions and six for non-urgent questions but it often has to deal with a great number of questions that deal with issues outside its mandate (past examples include asking the Commission for information about the death of Osama bin Laden and whether Marks & Spencer uses weight distorting mirrors), sometimes to disrupt the working of the Commission. The new rules would make a question inadmissible if it: fell outside the remit of the European Union, contained offensive language or related to personal matters. If a question was already asked, the author would be informed but they could still maintain their question. This proposal faces opposition from some MEPs who consider it impinging upon their rights. The new rules on questions were approved in July 2008.\n\nReferences\n\nEuropean Parliament",
"The Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina was the House of Representatives' congressional committee investigating the United States Government's failure to respond appropriately to Hurricane Katrina.\n\nThe committee was directed to cease 30 days after releasing its final report. That report was released February 15, 2006.\n\nMembers\nDespite the committee's name, it actually did not operate on a bipartisan basis. The committee was to have 20 members, with 11 members from the Republican majority and 9 members from the Democratic minority. However, Democrats did not appoint any members to the committee.\n\nFinal report\nThe final report, titled A Failure of Intitiave, found issues in the governmental response at all levels. It led to enactment of \"Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act\", which was meant to rectify the mistakes made and lack of preparation in response to Katrina.\n\nSee also\n Criticism of the government response to Hurricane Katrina\n\nExternal links\nhttp://katrina.house.gov/\n\nReferences\n\nHurricane Katrina House\nEffects of Hurricane Katrina\nHurricane Katrina House\nUnited States national commissions"
] |
[
"Sufjan Stevens",
"The BQE"
] |
C_66ddf01a02c24cf5bcc5e4ea10519d84_1
|
What was the BQE?
| 1 |
What was the BQE?
|
Sufjan Stevens
|
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 mm film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1-3, 2007. The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. The multimedia package was released on October 20, 2009. The release included a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. A limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula hooping wonder women, the Hooper Heroes, was also released. CANNOTANSWER
|
"symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway",
|
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
His debut album, A Sun Came, was released in 2000 on the Asthmatic Kitty label, which he co-founded with his stepfather. He received wide recognition for his 2005 album Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album. Stevens later contributed to the soundtrack of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the soundtrack's lead single, "Mystery of Love".
Stevens has released albums of varying styles, from the electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit and the lo-fi folk of Seven Swans to the symphonic instrumentation of Illinois and Christmas-themed Songs for Christmas. He employs various instruments, often playing many of them himself on the same recording. Stevens' music is also known for exploring various themes, particularly religion and spirituality. Stevens' ninth and latest studio album, Convocations, was released in 2021.
Early life
Stevens was born in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of nine, when his family moved to Alanson, Michigan, in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. He was raised by his father, Rasjid, and his stepmother, Pat, only occasionally visiting his mother, Carrie, in Oregon after she married her second husband, Lowell Brams. Brams later became the head of Stevens' record label Asthmatic Kitty. His brother Marzuki Stevens is a former professional road runner. Stevens is of Lithuanian and Greek descent.
Stevens attended the Detroit Waldorf School, Alanson Public Schools and Interlochen Arts Academy, and graduated from Harbor Light Christian School. He then attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and then earned an MFA from The New School in New York City.
Sufjan is an Armenian name that means "comes with a sword". The name most famously belonged to Abu Sufyan, a figure from early Islamic history. The name was given to Stevens by the founder of Subud, an interfaith spiritual community to which his parents belonged when he was born.
Career
Early career and the Fifty States Project (1995–2006)
Stevens began his musical career as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band from Holland, Michigan, as well as garage band Con Los Dudes. He also played (and continues to play) various instruments for Danielson Famile. During his final semester at Hope College, Stevens wrote and recorded his debut solo album, A Sun Came, which he released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. He later moved to New York City, where he enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research. During his time at the New School, Stevens developed a preoccupation with the short story form, which he believed would lead him to write a novel, but ultimately returned him to songwriting.
While in New York, Stevens composed and recorded the music for his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle based around the animals of the Chinese zodiac that delved into electronica.
Stevens followed this with the album Michigan, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals. It includes odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith, sorrow, love, and the regeneration of Michigan. Beginning with the album, Stevens announced an intent to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, which he termed the Fifty States Project. Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004. Stevens did not leave his job in the children's book division at Time Warner until touring for Seven Swans.
Next, he released the second in the Fifty States project, titled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville; the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the death of a friend on Casimir Pulaski Day, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Stevens had spent the second half of 2004 researching and writing material for the album. As with Michigan, Stevens used the state of Illinois as a leaping-off point for his more personal explorations of faith, family, love, and location. Though slated for release on July 5, 2005, the album was briefly delayed by legal issues regarding the use of an image of Superman in the original album cover artwork. In the double vinyl release, a balloon sticker was placed over Superman on the cover art of the first 5,000 copies. The next printings had an empty space where the Superman image was, as with the CD release. Illinois was widely acclaimed and was the highest-rated album of 2005 on the review aggregator website Metacritic. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album of the Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist of the Year. Pitchfork, No Ripcord, and Paste magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005, and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to noteworthy albums selling fewer than 500,000 copies, for Illinois.
In April 2006, Stevens announced that 21 pieces of music he had culled from the Illinois recording sessions would be incorporated into a new album, called The Avalanche, which was released on July 11, 2006. On September 11, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stevens debuted a new composition, a ten-minute-plus piece titled "Majesty Snowbird". On November 21, 2006, a five CD box set Songs for Christmas was released, which contains originals and Christmas standards recorded every year since 2001 (except 2004). Stevens undertook in the project initially as an exercise to make himself 'appreciate' Christmas more. The songs were the work of an annual collaboration between Stevens and different collaborators, including minister Vito Aiuto; the songs themselves were distributed to friends and family.
Although Stevens' subsequent work was sometimes speculated to tie into future "States" projects, and Stevens himself would make occasional statements alluding to the future of the project, Stevens later admitted that the project had been a "promotional gimmick" and not one he had seriously intended to complete. In November 2009, Stevens admitted to Exclaim! magazine, in regard to the fact that he recently called his fifty-state project a joke, that "I don't really have as much faith in my work as I used to, but I think that's healthy. I think it's allowed me to be less precious about how I work and write. And maybe it's okay for us to take it less seriously."
Soundtrack album and various collaborative projects (2007–2009)
Over the 2005 winter holidays, Stevens recorded an album with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In April 2006, Pitchfork erroneously announced that Stevens and Thomas were having a baby together, and were forced to print a retraction. Witmer and Thomas later admitted it was an April Fools' prank. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album titled These Friends of Mine. The album was released in physical form on March 13, 2007.
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn–Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1–3, 2007.
The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. In April 2007, in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Stevens made unannounced appearances on Thomas's tour in support of this album. In 2007, he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon standing on a roof in Cincinnati. In 2007, he played shows sporadically, including playing at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Stage concerts.
Stevens has also worked as an essayist, contributing to Asthmatic Kitty Records' "Sidebar" feature and Topic Magazine. He wrote the introduction to the 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a short story about his early childhood education and learning to read titled How I Trumped Rudolf Steiner and Overcame the Tribulations of Illiteracy, One Snickers Bar at a Time. That winter, he hosted an "Xmas Song Exchange Contest" in which winner Alec Duffy won exclusive rights to the original Stevens song "Lonely Man of Winter". The track could only be heard by attending private listening parties at Duffy's home in Brooklyn and at places around the world until 2018, when Duffy negotiated with Asthmatic Kitty Records to release the song with all proceeds going towards Duffy's organization JACK.
Stevens has contributed to the music of Denison Witmer, Soul-Junk, Half-handed Cloud, Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, Serena-Maneesh, Castanets, Will Stratton, Shannon Stephens, Clare & the Reasons, Little Scream, and Liz Janes. In 2007 alone, Stevens played piano on The National's album Boxer, produced and contributed many instrumental tracks to Rosie Thomas's album These Friends of Mine, multiple instruments on Ben + Vesper's album All This Could Kill You and oboe and vocals to David Garland's 2007 album Noise in You.
He has contributed covers of Tim Buckley ("She Is"), Joni Mitchell ("Free Man in Paris"), Daniel Johnston ("Worried Shoes"), John Fahey ("Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at Magruder Park"), The Innocence Mission ("The Lakes of Canada"), Bob Dylan ("Ring Them Bells"), Drake ("Hotline Bling"), Prince ("Kiss") and The Beatles ("What Goes On") to various tribute albums. His versions of "Free Man in Paris" and "What Goes On" are notable for only retaining the lyrics of the original, as Stevens has taken his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement. His rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has a similar rearranged melody and arrangement as well as a whole new verse.
His songs "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" were featured in the 2006 British comedy-drama Driving Lessons, starring Harry Potters Julie Walters and Rupert Grint. In 2008, he produced Welcome to The Welcome Wagon, the debut album of Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo Vito and Monique Aiuto, The Welcome Wagon.
In February 2009, Stevens contributed "You Are the Blood" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization. In April 2009, Stevens uploaded a song about director Sofia Coppola online. This song was written while Stevens was in college, from a series of songs about names.
Stevens recalled:
A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names. Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of songs for names. [...] Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical, musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear. And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually, my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching) completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food! That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes, forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking?
Solo studio albums (2009–2011)
In September 2009, Stevens began performing four new songs while on his fall tour, "All Delighted People", "Impossible Soul", "Too Much" and "Age of Adz". That year Stevens contributed to an album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, entitled Music for Insomnia. The album was released December 8, 2009. On October 6, 2009, Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, released an album of versions of his 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit rearranged for strings and performed by the Osso String Quartet, entitled Run Rabbit Run.
In 2010, Stevens was featured on The National's album High Violet, released in May, and sang backing vocals for the band on the Late Show with David Letterman. Following the release of High Violet, band frontman Matt Berninger mentioned that Stevens was recording a new album in the band's studio and that The National would appear on some of the tracks. In early August, Stevens announced North American tour dates across dozens of cities. On August 20, 2010, Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly released a new collection of tracks, the All Delighted People EP, for digital download. The EP is built around two versions of the title track, "All Delighted People". The EP surprisingly rose to #27 on the Billboard 200 albums solely through its digital sales. On August 26, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would release his newest full-length album, The Age of Adz, on October 12. NPR streamed the album until it was released on October 12, 2010.
The two albums featured a wide range of arrangements, from orchestral to electronic. Song lengths were also extended; the track "Djohariah" from All Delighted People is 17 minutes long, while "Impossible Soul" from The Age of Adz is 25 minutes long. The albums also feature many styles from disco to folk.
Stevens has stated in interviews that in 2009 and 2010 he suffered from a mysterious debilitating virus infection that affected his nervous system. He experienced chronic pain and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."
On October 12, 2010, Stevens began his North American tour in Montreal, featuring virtually all new material. The tour lasted just over a month and ended on November 15, 2010, in New York City. Stevens toured Australia and New Zealand in early 2011, featured as part of the Sydney Festival, and appeared on-stage with The National during the last of three sold-out Auckland shows. He also toured Europe and the United Kingdom in April and May 2011, playing there for the first time in five years. His shows mostly consisted of new material, but he did play many older tracks from Seven Swans and Illinois. Stevens ended the Age of Adz tour with two shows in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.
Further collaborative projects (2012–2014)
On February 27, 2012, it was announced Stevens would release a collaborative EP titled Beak & Claw, on March 20, with artists Son Lux and Serengeti under the name S / S / S on the Anticon record label. Stevens released a 7" with close friend Rosie Thomas for Record Store Day 2012, titled Hit & Run Vol. 1. He also collaborated with choreographer Justin Peck on two ballets for the New York City Ballet: Year of the Rabbit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014), both to great critical acclaim. Stevens, along with fellow Brooklyn musicians Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, began performing their classical project Planetarium, a song-cycle based around the planets in our solar system in countries such as England, The Netherlands, Australia and France from March to July 2012.
On October 2, 2012, it was announced that Stevens would release a second set of Christmas albums, titled Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6–10, on November 13, 2012. Silver & Gold contains 58 songs, allowing for a total of 100 when combined with his first set of Christmas albums, Songs for Christmas. To support this new release, Stevens performed in 24 cities around the United States for his 2012 tour titled "The Sirfjam Stephanapolous Christmas Sing-a-Long Seasonal Affective Disorder Spectacular Music Pageant Variety Show Disaster". On December 11, 2012, Stevens released Chopped and Scrooged, a Christmas-themed hip-hop mixtape featuring music from Silver & Gold.
As a part of Joyful Noise's 2013 Flexi Disc Series, Stevens and Cat Martino, of Stranger Cat, recorded the single "Take the Time". Martino has contributed to many of Stevens' past projects, including The Age of Adz. On March 18, 2014, Stevens released the self-titled album, Sisyphus, with Son Lux and rapper Serengeti.
Carrie & Lowell (2015–2017)
On January 12, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced that Stevens would release a new album called Carrie & Lowell. Stevens shared the first single from the album, "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross", on February 16, 2015. Carrie & Lowell was released on March 31, 2015. The album garnered critical acclaim upon its release. Stereogum placed the album on its best albums of the decade list in 16th place and described it as "an elegant heartbreaker of an album", while Consequence of Sound ranked it the 43rd best album of the decade, calling it "a special brew that makes even the most intimate personal moment feel parabolic".
The album follows the nuances and trials of life with Stevens' mother, Carrie, who was diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic, was addicted to drugs, and abandoned him when he was a year old; it also includes Stevens' stepfather, Lowell Brams. Stevens also stated that the songwriting for the album was incited by his process of grieving and coming to terms with his and his mother's relationship following his mother's death due to stomach cancer in 2012. On January 26, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced a tour of North America, which began in April 2015, to coincide with the new album. Stevens also headlined the End of the Road Festival in the United Kingdom in September. On July 21, a second set of U.S. tour dates, which took place in October and November 2015, was announced.
After Stevens performed new compositions about the solar system alongside composers Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner in Amsterdam in April 2012, it was reported in March 2017 that the three and James McAlister would produce an album. The "80-minute concept album", titled Planetarium, was released in July 2017. On April 28, 2017, a live album and concert film, Carrie & Lowell Live was released, featuring new interpretations, re-workings and expansions of the songs from Carrie & Lowell. In addition to the live album, Stevens announced another Carrie & Lowell companion piece, The Greatest Gift, released on November 24. It includes four unreleased songs from the album sessions, as well as several remixes and a demo.
Call Me by Your Name and The Ascension (2017–2020)
In January 2017, it was announced that Stevens would contribute original songs written and recorded by himself for the coming-of-age romantic drama film Call Me by Your Name. The film was released on November 24, 2017, by Sony Pictures Classics. The soundtrack of the film features two new songs and a remix of an existing song by Stevens: "Visions of Gideon", which has been described as containing "lush orchestrations" and "staccato-heavy piano refrains", "Mystery of Love", which was featured in the film's trailer as well as the film itself, and an "ethereal piano arrangement" of The Age of Adz track "Futile Devices". In his review of the film, Consequence of Sound writer Dominick Suzanne-Mayer praised Stevens' work as a composer on the film, noting that he "has a perfect ear for the film's portrayal of a summer that's getting shorter by the day." In January 2018, "Mystery of Love" earned a nomination for the year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. Later in the year, the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The song was featured in the second season of the Netflix series Sex Education.
In December 2017, Stevens released two versions of "Tonya Harding", a song about the figure skater of the same name. The song's video shows a clip of the eponymous skater performing at the 1991 US Figure Skating Championships. Two days later, the single was offered for digital download and streaming, to be followed later by a cassette and vinyl release, in two versions, the one featured in the video (subtitled "in D major") and a piano-only arrangement ("in E♭ major"); in a short essay, Stevens revealed his intention to write a song about Harding since 1991. According to Stevens, "I've been trying to write a Tonya Harding song since I first saw her skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1991. She's a complicated subject for a song partly because the hard facts of her life are so strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American." Stevens later revealed that the song was offered to the producers to the biographical film I, Tonya, which was released in the same period, but that they decided not to include it in the film.
In October 2018, Stevens performed and recorded with pop music artist Angelo De Augustine a collaborative duo of the latter's "Time" single. On May 29, 2019, Stevens released two new songs, respectively entitled "Love Yourself" and "With My Whole Heart", which were released in celebration of Pride Month. Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork called "With My Whole Heart" "five minutes of unabashed and (relatively) unadorned inspirational soft rock" and "Love Yourself" "similarly glowing". Pride-themed T-shirts designed by Stevens also debuted alongside the singles. He later stated that a portion of the song and shirts' proceeds would go to the Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, two organizations which aim to help LGBT youth. In October 2019, Stevens released an album entitled The Decalogue with pianist Timo Andres. It is based on a ballet of the same name by Justin Peck, composed by Stevens.
On March 24, 2020, Stevens released a collaborative album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, titled Aporia. In June, Stevens announced his eighth studio album, titled The Ascension, along with the album's lead single "America", which was released on July 3. The album's second single, "Video Game", was released on August 13, and the third single, "Sugar", was released on September 15. The Ascension was released in full on September 25.
Recent works (2021–present)
On May 6, 2021, Stevens released a five-volume album of meditation music, called Convocations. On July 7, 2021, Stevens announced the release of a collaborative album, called A Beginner's Mind, that he recorded with fellow folk singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine. On the same day, they unveiled the cover and the first two singles, "Reach Out" and "Olympus". A Beginner's Mind is a concept album, each track being inspired by a different film from either the 20th or 21st century.
Artistry
Musical style
Stevens' sound has been most generally associated with genres such as indie folk, alternative rock, indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, chamber pop, folk pop, avant-garde folk, lo-fi folk, and electronica. A multi-instrumentalist, Stevens is known for his frequent use of the banjo, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, woodwinds, and several other instruments on his records, layered through the use of multitrack recording.
Themes
Stevens' work is known to explore themes of love, religion, outer space, and grief.
Despite many of his songs having spiritual allusions, Stevens does not identify as a contemporary Christian music artist or frequently discuss religion with the press. He told The Village Voice: "I don't think music media is the real forum for theological discussions. I think I've said things and sung about things that probably weren't appropriate for this kind of form. And I just feel like it's not my work or my place to be making claims and statements because I often think it's misunderstood."
During a 2004 interview with Adrian Pannett for Comes with a Smile magazine, when asked how important faith was to his music, he said "I don't like talking about that stuff in the public forum because, I think, certain themes and convictions are meant for personal conversation." In a 2006 interview, he said "It's not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance (giving a speech or tying my shoes), I am living and moving and being."
Personal life
Stevens has resided in Upstate New York near the Catskill Mountains since 2019. Before this, he lived in New York City for 20 years. He identifies as a Christian. Stevens also stated in 2005 that he attended an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church.
While in school, Stevens studied the oboe and English horn, which he plays on his albums. Stevens did not learn to play the guitar until his time at Hope College.
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"|Academy Awards
| 2018
|rowspan="5"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|AMFT Awards
| 2017
| Best Song Written For Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Awards Circuit Community Awards
| 2017
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics Choice Awards
| 2018
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|David di Donatello Awards
| 2019
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Dorian Awards
| 2019
| 2018 Oscar's Performance
| TV Musical Performance of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Georgia Film Critics Association
| 2018
|rowspan="2"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="4" scope="row"|Gold Derby Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| rowspan="2"|Original Song
|
| rowspan="4"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|"Visions of Gideon"
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2020
| rowspan="2"|Original Song of the Decade
|
|-
|rowspan="4"|"Mystery of Love"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Grammy Awards
| 2019
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
| 2018
| Best Song/Recording Created for a Film
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hawaii Film Critics Society
| 2018
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Houston Film Critics Society Awards
| 2018
|"Visions of Gideon"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|International Cinephile Society Awards
| 2018
|' Call Me By Your Name
| Best Original Score
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|International Online Cinema Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! scope="row"|New Mexico Film Critics
| 2017
|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|Online Film & Television Association
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Music, Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! rowspan="7" scope="row"|PLUG Independent Music Awards
| rowspan="6"|2006
| rowspan="3"|" Illinois"
| Album of the Year
|
| rowspan="7"|
|-
| Album/Art Packaging of the Year
|
|-
|Indie Rock Album of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Himself
|Artist of the Year
|
|-
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
|"Chicago"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|2007
|Himself
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
! scope="row"|Shortlist Music Prize
| 2005
| " Illinois"
|
|
|
|-
Discography
Studio albums
A Sun Came (1999)
Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001)
Michigan (2003)
Seven Swans (2004)
Illinois (2005)
The Age of Adz (2010)
Carrie & Lowell (2015)
The Ascension (2020)
Convocations (2021) (five-volume collection)
Collaborative albums
Planetarium (2017), with Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and James McAlister
The Decalogue (2019), with Timo Andres
Aporia (2020), with Lowell Brams
A Beginner's Mind (2021), with Angelo De Augustine
References
External links
1975 births
21st-century American singers
21st-century multi-instrumentalists
American banjoists
American electronic musicians
American experimental musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk rock musicians
American folk singers
American people of Greek descent
American indie pop musicians
American indie rock musicians
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American oboists
American people of Lithuanian descent
American rock guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Asthmatic Kitty artists
Baroque pop musicians
Christians from Michigan
Cor anglais players
Folk musicians from Michigan
Guitarists from Michigan
Record producers from Michigan
Hope College alumni
Indie folk musicians
Living people
Male oboists
Musicians from Detroit
People from Holland, Michigan
People from Kensington, Brooklyn
Rock oboists
Rough Trade Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Michigan
Sisyphus (hip hop group) members
Waldorf school alumni
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
People from Petoskey, Michigan
| false |
[
"The BQE is a mixed-medium artistic exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway by Sufjan Stevens. The project originally manifested in the form of a live show, performed on November 1–3, 2007. The show consisted of an original film, directed and written by Stevens, accompanied by an orchestra performing a live soundtrack.\n\nThe album recording was made after the rehearsals for the show. It was recorded live during a one-day session in Legacy Studios' A509 orchestral suite (since closed and demolished) with most of the group in the same large room together.\n\nA multimedia package of The BQE was released on October 20, 2009. The set consists of a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queen Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. There is also a limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula-hooping wonder women, The Hooper Heroes.\n\nRegarding The BQE, Stevens said:\n\nBallet\nJustin Peck's ballet, In the Countenance of Kings, is set to music from The BQE, made for the San Francisco Ballet.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nProduction\n Alejandro Venguer, assisted by Jeff Kirby and Tyler Van Dalen – recording, legacy studios, New York City\n Casey Foubert, James McAlister, and Sufjan Stevens – additional recording, Sufjan's office in Brooklyn\n Sufjan Stevens – mixing\n Lisa Moran – production management\n Michael Atkinson – music editing, copyist\n\nPerforming artists\n\n Tim Albright – trombone\n Hideaki Aomori – clarinet\n Mat Fieldes – upright bass\n Casey Foubert – electric guitar\n Josh Frank – trumpet\n Alan Hampton – upright bass\n Marla Hansen – viola, vocals\n Jay Hassler – bass clarinet, clarinet\n Maria Bella Jeffers – cello\n Ben Lanz – trombone\n Olivier Manchon – violin\n Rob Moose – violin\n Sato Moughalian – flute, piccolo\n Damian Primis – bassoon\n\n Theo Primis – French horn\n Joey Redhage – cello\n Kyle Resnick – trumpet\n Yuuki Matthews – bass, beats\n Beth Meyers – viola\n James McAlister – drums, percussion, drum programming, sequencing, synthesizers, sound effects, etc.\n Matt Moran – drums, percussion\n Arthur Sato – oboe\n Alex Sopp – flute, alto flute, piccolo\n Hiroko Taguchi – violin\n Amie Weiss – violin\n Sufjan Stevens – \"everything else\"\n Michael Atkinson – conductor\n\nBQE Film\n Anastasia-Dyan Pridlides – botanica\n Elaine Tian – quantus\n Lindsay Brickel – electress\n Sufjan Stevens – direction, cinematography, editing\n Reuben Kleiner – cinematography, editing\n Malcolm Hearn – editing\n Bryant Fisher and Blink Digital – post-production\n\nPackaging\n Denny Renshaw – photography\n Anastasia-Dyan Pridlides – botanica\n Elaine Tian – quantus\n Lindsay Brickel – electress\n Stephen Halker – bailey\n Virginia Bradley Linzee – makeup\n Belinda Martin – wardrobe\n Caroline McAlister – costume design, costumes\n Sufjan Stevens – photography, layout, design, illustrations\n\n\"Hooper Heroes\" Comic Book/Stereoscopic Reel\n Sufjan Stevens – story, writing\n Stephen Halker – story, penciling, inking, lettering, coloring\n Heidi Cho – coloring\n David Min – coloring\n Matt Loux – cover watercolour\n Christian Ackler – cover masthead\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAsthmatic Kitty Records' page for The BQE\n\nSufjan Stevens soundtracks\nFilm soundtracks\nInterstate 78\nConcept albums\n2009 soundtrack albums\nAlbums produced by Sufjan Stevens\nAsthmatic Kitty soundtracks\nInstrumental soundtracks",
"BQE or bqe may stand for:\n\n Brooklyn–Queens Expressway\n The BQE (soundtrack)\n ISO 639-3 code Navarro-Lapurdian dialect.\n IATA code Bubaque Airport"
] |
[
"Sufjan Stevens",
"The BQE",
"What was the BQE?",
"\"symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway\","
] |
C_66ddf01a02c24cf5bcc5e4ea10519d84_1
|
Was it a show or a type of album?
| 2 |
Was The BQE a show or a type of album?
|
Sufjan Stevens
|
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 mm film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1-3, 2007. The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. The multimedia package was released on October 20, 2009. The release included a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. A limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula hooping wonder women, the Hooper Heroes, was also released. CANNOTANSWER
|
was manifested in a live show.
|
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
His debut album, A Sun Came, was released in 2000 on the Asthmatic Kitty label, which he co-founded with his stepfather. He received wide recognition for his 2005 album Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album. Stevens later contributed to the soundtrack of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the soundtrack's lead single, "Mystery of Love".
Stevens has released albums of varying styles, from the electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit and the lo-fi folk of Seven Swans to the symphonic instrumentation of Illinois and Christmas-themed Songs for Christmas. He employs various instruments, often playing many of them himself on the same recording. Stevens' music is also known for exploring various themes, particularly religion and spirituality. Stevens' ninth and latest studio album, Convocations, was released in 2021.
Early life
Stevens was born in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of nine, when his family moved to Alanson, Michigan, in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. He was raised by his father, Rasjid, and his stepmother, Pat, only occasionally visiting his mother, Carrie, in Oregon after she married her second husband, Lowell Brams. Brams later became the head of Stevens' record label Asthmatic Kitty. His brother Marzuki Stevens is a former professional road runner. Stevens is of Lithuanian and Greek descent.
Stevens attended the Detroit Waldorf School, Alanson Public Schools and Interlochen Arts Academy, and graduated from Harbor Light Christian School. He then attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and then earned an MFA from The New School in New York City.
Sufjan is an Armenian name that means "comes with a sword". The name most famously belonged to Abu Sufyan, a figure from early Islamic history. The name was given to Stevens by the founder of Subud, an interfaith spiritual community to which his parents belonged when he was born.
Career
Early career and the Fifty States Project (1995–2006)
Stevens began his musical career as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band from Holland, Michigan, as well as garage band Con Los Dudes. He also played (and continues to play) various instruments for Danielson Famile. During his final semester at Hope College, Stevens wrote and recorded his debut solo album, A Sun Came, which he released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. He later moved to New York City, where he enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research. During his time at the New School, Stevens developed a preoccupation with the short story form, which he believed would lead him to write a novel, but ultimately returned him to songwriting.
While in New York, Stevens composed and recorded the music for his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle based around the animals of the Chinese zodiac that delved into electronica.
Stevens followed this with the album Michigan, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals. It includes odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith, sorrow, love, and the regeneration of Michigan. Beginning with the album, Stevens announced an intent to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, which he termed the Fifty States Project. Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004. Stevens did not leave his job in the children's book division at Time Warner until touring for Seven Swans.
Next, he released the second in the Fifty States project, titled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville; the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the death of a friend on Casimir Pulaski Day, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Stevens had spent the second half of 2004 researching and writing material for the album. As with Michigan, Stevens used the state of Illinois as a leaping-off point for his more personal explorations of faith, family, love, and location. Though slated for release on July 5, 2005, the album was briefly delayed by legal issues regarding the use of an image of Superman in the original album cover artwork. In the double vinyl release, a balloon sticker was placed over Superman on the cover art of the first 5,000 copies. The next printings had an empty space where the Superman image was, as with the CD release. Illinois was widely acclaimed and was the highest-rated album of 2005 on the review aggregator website Metacritic. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album of the Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist of the Year. Pitchfork, No Ripcord, and Paste magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005, and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to noteworthy albums selling fewer than 500,000 copies, for Illinois.
In April 2006, Stevens announced that 21 pieces of music he had culled from the Illinois recording sessions would be incorporated into a new album, called The Avalanche, which was released on July 11, 2006. On September 11, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stevens debuted a new composition, a ten-minute-plus piece titled "Majesty Snowbird". On November 21, 2006, a five CD box set Songs for Christmas was released, which contains originals and Christmas standards recorded every year since 2001 (except 2004). Stevens undertook in the project initially as an exercise to make himself 'appreciate' Christmas more. The songs were the work of an annual collaboration between Stevens and different collaborators, including minister Vito Aiuto; the songs themselves were distributed to friends and family.
Although Stevens' subsequent work was sometimes speculated to tie into future "States" projects, and Stevens himself would make occasional statements alluding to the future of the project, Stevens later admitted that the project had been a "promotional gimmick" and not one he had seriously intended to complete. In November 2009, Stevens admitted to Exclaim! magazine, in regard to the fact that he recently called his fifty-state project a joke, that "I don't really have as much faith in my work as I used to, but I think that's healthy. I think it's allowed me to be less precious about how I work and write. And maybe it's okay for us to take it less seriously."
Soundtrack album and various collaborative projects (2007–2009)
Over the 2005 winter holidays, Stevens recorded an album with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In April 2006, Pitchfork erroneously announced that Stevens and Thomas were having a baby together, and were forced to print a retraction. Witmer and Thomas later admitted it was an April Fools' prank. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album titled These Friends of Mine. The album was released in physical form on March 13, 2007.
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn–Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1–3, 2007.
The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. In April 2007, in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Stevens made unannounced appearances on Thomas's tour in support of this album. In 2007, he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon standing on a roof in Cincinnati. In 2007, he played shows sporadically, including playing at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Stage concerts.
Stevens has also worked as an essayist, contributing to Asthmatic Kitty Records' "Sidebar" feature and Topic Magazine. He wrote the introduction to the 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a short story about his early childhood education and learning to read titled How I Trumped Rudolf Steiner and Overcame the Tribulations of Illiteracy, One Snickers Bar at a Time. That winter, he hosted an "Xmas Song Exchange Contest" in which winner Alec Duffy won exclusive rights to the original Stevens song "Lonely Man of Winter". The track could only be heard by attending private listening parties at Duffy's home in Brooklyn and at places around the world until 2018, when Duffy negotiated with Asthmatic Kitty Records to release the song with all proceeds going towards Duffy's organization JACK.
Stevens has contributed to the music of Denison Witmer, Soul-Junk, Half-handed Cloud, Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, Serena-Maneesh, Castanets, Will Stratton, Shannon Stephens, Clare & the Reasons, Little Scream, and Liz Janes. In 2007 alone, Stevens played piano on The National's album Boxer, produced and contributed many instrumental tracks to Rosie Thomas's album These Friends of Mine, multiple instruments on Ben + Vesper's album All This Could Kill You and oboe and vocals to David Garland's 2007 album Noise in You.
He has contributed covers of Tim Buckley ("She Is"), Joni Mitchell ("Free Man in Paris"), Daniel Johnston ("Worried Shoes"), John Fahey ("Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at Magruder Park"), The Innocence Mission ("The Lakes of Canada"), Bob Dylan ("Ring Them Bells"), Drake ("Hotline Bling"), Prince ("Kiss") and The Beatles ("What Goes On") to various tribute albums. His versions of "Free Man in Paris" and "What Goes On" are notable for only retaining the lyrics of the original, as Stevens has taken his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement. His rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has a similar rearranged melody and arrangement as well as a whole new verse.
His songs "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" were featured in the 2006 British comedy-drama Driving Lessons, starring Harry Potters Julie Walters and Rupert Grint. In 2008, he produced Welcome to The Welcome Wagon, the debut album of Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo Vito and Monique Aiuto, The Welcome Wagon.
In February 2009, Stevens contributed "You Are the Blood" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization. In April 2009, Stevens uploaded a song about director Sofia Coppola online. This song was written while Stevens was in college, from a series of songs about names.
Stevens recalled:
A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names. Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of songs for names. [...] Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical, musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear. And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually, my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching) completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food! That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes, forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking?
Solo studio albums (2009–2011)
In September 2009, Stevens began performing four new songs while on his fall tour, "All Delighted People", "Impossible Soul", "Too Much" and "Age of Adz". That year Stevens contributed to an album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, entitled Music for Insomnia. The album was released December 8, 2009. On October 6, 2009, Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, released an album of versions of his 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit rearranged for strings and performed by the Osso String Quartet, entitled Run Rabbit Run.
In 2010, Stevens was featured on The National's album High Violet, released in May, and sang backing vocals for the band on the Late Show with David Letterman. Following the release of High Violet, band frontman Matt Berninger mentioned that Stevens was recording a new album in the band's studio and that The National would appear on some of the tracks. In early August, Stevens announced North American tour dates across dozens of cities. On August 20, 2010, Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly released a new collection of tracks, the All Delighted People EP, for digital download. The EP is built around two versions of the title track, "All Delighted People". The EP surprisingly rose to #27 on the Billboard 200 albums solely through its digital sales. On August 26, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would release his newest full-length album, The Age of Adz, on October 12. NPR streamed the album until it was released on October 12, 2010.
The two albums featured a wide range of arrangements, from orchestral to electronic. Song lengths were also extended; the track "Djohariah" from All Delighted People is 17 minutes long, while "Impossible Soul" from The Age of Adz is 25 minutes long. The albums also feature many styles from disco to folk.
Stevens has stated in interviews that in 2009 and 2010 he suffered from a mysterious debilitating virus infection that affected his nervous system. He experienced chronic pain and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."
On October 12, 2010, Stevens began his North American tour in Montreal, featuring virtually all new material. The tour lasted just over a month and ended on November 15, 2010, in New York City. Stevens toured Australia and New Zealand in early 2011, featured as part of the Sydney Festival, and appeared on-stage with The National during the last of three sold-out Auckland shows. He also toured Europe and the United Kingdom in April and May 2011, playing there for the first time in five years. His shows mostly consisted of new material, but he did play many older tracks from Seven Swans and Illinois. Stevens ended the Age of Adz tour with two shows in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.
Further collaborative projects (2012–2014)
On February 27, 2012, it was announced Stevens would release a collaborative EP titled Beak & Claw, on March 20, with artists Son Lux and Serengeti under the name S / S / S on the Anticon record label. Stevens released a 7" with close friend Rosie Thomas for Record Store Day 2012, titled Hit & Run Vol. 1. He also collaborated with choreographer Justin Peck on two ballets for the New York City Ballet: Year of the Rabbit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014), both to great critical acclaim. Stevens, along with fellow Brooklyn musicians Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, began performing their classical project Planetarium, a song-cycle based around the planets in our solar system in countries such as England, The Netherlands, Australia and France from March to July 2012.
On October 2, 2012, it was announced that Stevens would release a second set of Christmas albums, titled Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6–10, on November 13, 2012. Silver & Gold contains 58 songs, allowing for a total of 100 when combined with his first set of Christmas albums, Songs for Christmas. To support this new release, Stevens performed in 24 cities around the United States for his 2012 tour titled "The Sirfjam Stephanapolous Christmas Sing-a-Long Seasonal Affective Disorder Spectacular Music Pageant Variety Show Disaster". On December 11, 2012, Stevens released Chopped and Scrooged, a Christmas-themed hip-hop mixtape featuring music from Silver & Gold.
As a part of Joyful Noise's 2013 Flexi Disc Series, Stevens and Cat Martino, of Stranger Cat, recorded the single "Take the Time". Martino has contributed to many of Stevens' past projects, including The Age of Adz. On March 18, 2014, Stevens released the self-titled album, Sisyphus, with Son Lux and rapper Serengeti.
Carrie & Lowell (2015–2017)
On January 12, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced that Stevens would release a new album called Carrie & Lowell. Stevens shared the first single from the album, "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross", on February 16, 2015. Carrie & Lowell was released on March 31, 2015. The album garnered critical acclaim upon its release. Stereogum placed the album on its best albums of the decade list in 16th place and described it as "an elegant heartbreaker of an album", while Consequence of Sound ranked it the 43rd best album of the decade, calling it "a special brew that makes even the most intimate personal moment feel parabolic".
The album follows the nuances and trials of life with Stevens' mother, Carrie, who was diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic, was addicted to drugs, and abandoned him when he was a year old; it also includes Stevens' stepfather, Lowell Brams. Stevens also stated that the songwriting for the album was incited by his process of grieving and coming to terms with his and his mother's relationship following his mother's death due to stomach cancer in 2012. On January 26, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced a tour of North America, which began in April 2015, to coincide with the new album. Stevens also headlined the End of the Road Festival in the United Kingdom in September. On July 21, a second set of U.S. tour dates, which took place in October and November 2015, was announced.
After Stevens performed new compositions about the solar system alongside composers Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner in Amsterdam in April 2012, it was reported in March 2017 that the three and James McAlister would produce an album. The "80-minute concept album", titled Planetarium, was released in July 2017. On April 28, 2017, a live album and concert film, Carrie & Lowell Live was released, featuring new interpretations, re-workings and expansions of the songs from Carrie & Lowell. In addition to the live album, Stevens announced another Carrie & Lowell companion piece, The Greatest Gift, released on November 24. It includes four unreleased songs from the album sessions, as well as several remixes and a demo.
Call Me by Your Name and The Ascension (2017–2020)
In January 2017, it was announced that Stevens would contribute original songs written and recorded by himself for the coming-of-age romantic drama film Call Me by Your Name. The film was released on November 24, 2017, by Sony Pictures Classics. The soundtrack of the film features two new songs and a remix of an existing song by Stevens: "Visions of Gideon", which has been described as containing "lush orchestrations" and "staccato-heavy piano refrains", "Mystery of Love", which was featured in the film's trailer as well as the film itself, and an "ethereal piano arrangement" of The Age of Adz track "Futile Devices". In his review of the film, Consequence of Sound writer Dominick Suzanne-Mayer praised Stevens' work as a composer on the film, noting that he "has a perfect ear for the film's portrayal of a summer that's getting shorter by the day." In January 2018, "Mystery of Love" earned a nomination for the year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. Later in the year, the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The song was featured in the second season of the Netflix series Sex Education.
In December 2017, Stevens released two versions of "Tonya Harding", a song about the figure skater of the same name. The song's video shows a clip of the eponymous skater performing at the 1991 US Figure Skating Championships. Two days later, the single was offered for digital download and streaming, to be followed later by a cassette and vinyl release, in two versions, the one featured in the video (subtitled "in D major") and a piano-only arrangement ("in E♭ major"); in a short essay, Stevens revealed his intention to write a song about Harding since 1991. According to Stevens, "I've been trying to write a Tonya Harding song since I first saw her skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1991. She's a complicated subject for a song partly because the hard facts of her life are so strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American." Stevens later revealed that the song was offered to the producers to the biographical film I, Tonya, which was released in the same period, but that they decided not to include it in the film.
In October 2018, Stevens performed and recorded with pop music artist Angelo De Augustine a collaborative duo of the latter's "Time" single. On May 29, 2019, Stevens released two new songs, respectively entitled "Love Yourself" and "With My Whole Heart", which were released in celebration of Pride Month. Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork called "With My Whole Heart" "five minutes of unabashed and (relatively) unadorned inspirational soft rock" and "Love Yourself" "similarly glowing". Pride-themed T-shirts designed by Stevens also debuted alongside the singles. He later stated that a portion of the song and shirts' proceeds would go to the Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, two organizations which aim to help LGBT youth. In October 2019, Stevens released an album entitled The Decalogue with pianist Timo Andres. It is based on a ballet of the same name by Justin Peck, composed by Stevens.
On March 24, 2020, Stevens released a collaborative album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, titled Aporia. In June, Stevens announced his eighth studio album, titled The Ascension, along with the album's lead single "America", which was released on July 3. The album's second single, "Video Game", was released on August 13, and the third single, "Sugar", was released on September 15. The Ascension was released in full on September 25.
Recent works (2021–present)
On May 6, 2021, Stevens released a five-volume album of meditation music, called Convocations. On July 7, 2021, Stevens announced the release of a collaborative album, called A Beginner's Mind, that he recorded with fellow folk singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine. On the same day, they unveiled the cover and the first two singles, "Reach Out" and "Olympus". A Beginner's Mind is a concept album, each track being inspired by a different film from either the 20th or 21st century.
Artistry
Musical style
Stevens' sound has been most generally associated with genres such as indie folk, alternative rock, indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, chamber pop, folk pop, avant-garde folk, lo-fi folk, and electronica. A multi-instrumentalist, Stevens is known for his frequent use of the banjo, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, woodwinds, and several other instruments on his records, layered through the use of multitrack recording.
Themes
Stevens' work is known to explore themes of love, religion, outer space, and grief.
Despite many of his songs having spiritual allusions, Stevens does not identify as a contemporary Christian music artist or frequently discuss religion with the press. He told The Village Voice: "I don't think music media is the real forum for theological discussions. I think I've said things and sung about things that probably weren't appropriate for this kind of form. And I just feel like it's not my work or my place to be making claims and statements because I often think it's misunderstood."
During a 2004 interview with Adrian Pannett for Comes with a Smile magazine, when asked how important faith was to his music, he said "I don't like talking about that stuff in the public forum because, I think, certain themes and convictions are meant for personal conversation." In a 2006 interview, he said "It's not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance (giving a speech or tying my shoes), I am living and moving and being."
Personal life
Stevens has resided in Upstate New York near the Catskill Mountains since 2019. Before this, he lived in New York City for 20 years. He identifies as a Christian. Stevens also stated in 2005 that he attended an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church.
While in school, Stevens studied the oboe and English horn, which he plays on his albums. Stevens did not learn to play the guitar until his time at Hope College.
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"|Academy Awards
| 2018
|rowspan="5"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|AMFT Awards
| 2017
| Best Song Written For Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Awards Circuit Community Awards
| 2017
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics Choice Awards
| 2018
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|David di Donatello Awards
| 2019
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Dorian Awards
| 2019
| 2018 Oscar's Performance
| TV Musical Performance of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Georgia Film Critics Association
| 2018
|rowspan="2"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="4" scope="row"|Gold Derby Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| rowspan="2"|Original Song
|
| rowspan="4"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|"Visions of Gideon"
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2020
| rowspan="2"|Original Song of the Decade
|
|-
|rowspan="4"|"Mystery of Love"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Grammy Awards
| 2019
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
| 2018
| Best Song/Recording Created for a Film
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hawaii Film Critics Society
| 2018
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Houston Film Critics Society Awards
| 2018
|"Visions of Gideon"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|International Cinephile Society Awards
| 2018
|' Call Me By Your Name
| Best Original Score
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|International Online Cinema Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! scope="row"|New Mexico Film Critics
| 2017
|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|Online Film & Television Association
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Music, Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! rowspan="7" scope="row"|PLUG Independent Music Awards
| rowspan="6"|2006
| rowspan="3"|" Illinois"
| Album of the Year
|
| rowspan="7"|
|-
| Album/Art Packaging of the Year
|
|-
|Indie Rock Album of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Himself
|Artist of the Year
|
|-
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
|"Chicago"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|2007
|Himself
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
! scope="row"|Shortlist Music Prize
| 2005
| " Illinois"
|
|
|
|-
Discography
Studio albums
A Sun Came (1999)
Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001)
Michigan (2003)
Seven Swans (2004)
Illinois (2005)
The Age of Adz (2010)
Carrie & Lowell (2015)
The Ascension (2020)
Convocations (2021) (five-volume collection)
Collaborative albums
Planetarium (2017), with Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and James McAlister
The Decalogue (2019), with Timo Andres
Aporia (2020), with Lowell Brams
A Beginner's Mind (2021), with Angelo De Augustine
References
External links
1975 births
21st-century American singers
21st-century multi-instrumentalists
American banjoists
American electronic musicians
American experimental musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk rock musicians
American folk singers
American people of Greek descent
American indie pop musicians
American indie rock musicians
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American oboists
American people of Lithuanian descent
American rock guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Asthmatic Kitty artists
Baroque pop musicians
Christians from Michigan
Cor anglais players
Folk musicians from Michigan
Guitarists from Michigan
Record producers from Michigan
Hope College alumni
Indie folk musicians
Living people
Male oboists
Musicians from Detroit
People from Holland, Michigan
People from Kensington, Brooklyn
Rock oboists
Rough Trade Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Michigan
Sisyphus (hip hop group) members
Waldorf school alumni
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
People from Petoskey, Michigan
| true |
[
"is the debut studio album and first major Japanese release of South Korean girl group Rainbow, It was released on March 28, 2012, in Japan under Universal Sigma. The album was released in two versions, a CD & DVD Edition and a regular CD Edition. It was preceded by the singles \"A\", \"Mach\" and first original Japanese single \"Gonna Gonna Go!\". The album was re-released on December 12, 2012, in three different editions.\n\nEditions\n\nStandard version\nThe album was released in two different editions: CD & DVD Edition and the Regular CD Edition.\n\nThe CD & DVD Edition contains the CD album and a DVD containing the \"RAINBOW Premium Live at SHIBUYA PUBLIC HALL\" show, including the songs \"Mach\", \"Not Your Girl\", \"To Me\", \"Gossip Girl\", and \"A\". It also includes a backstage video of the \"Premium Live\" show, and a special music video of \"Mach\", featuring more solo and group shots, also known as a \"Close-Up\" version from the original music video.\n\nThe Regular CD Edition of Over the Rainbow contains only the CD album itself.\n\nSpecial version\nNine months later, on December 12, the album was re-released in three different editions: two CD+DVD editions and a 2CD only edition.\n\nThe CD+DVD editions include the Over The Rainbow album and a special DVD: Type A includes all music videos of the group included on the albums and Type B includes performances of all Korean promotional tracks at that time being, \"Gossip Girl\", \"Not Your Girl\", \"A\", \"Mach\", \"To Me\" and \"Sweet Dream\". All performances are from the KBS' show Music Bank.\n\nThe CD only edition include two CDs: the standard Over the Rainbow as CD 1 and a special Korean greatest hits on the CD 2, including tracks from the mini albums Gossip Girl and So Girls. This edition includes the Japanese song \"Candy Girls!\", theme song of the animated show Zoobles!, as bonus track of the CD 2.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nOricon\n\nOther charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences \n\n2012 albums\nJ-pop albums\nJapanese-language albums\nRainbow (girl group) albums\nUniversal Music Japan albums",
"Welcome Back is the debut studio album by South Korean male group iKON. The full album was initially planned to be released on November 2, 2015. However, on October 27, 2015, YG Entertainment announced that the release of the full album would be delayed. The album was released on December 24, 2015, along with additional music videos than previously planned. Additionally, two digital singles along with accompanying music videos were released on November 16.\n\niKON topped the Gaon Album chart with their Debut Half Album - Welcome Back from October 4, 2015 to October 10, 2015. Their first single, My Type was released on September 15 and became a huge success, selling about 1.6 million copies in Korea and becoming one of the best selling singles of 2015.\n\nBackground and development\nOn September 15, 2015, iKON's debut single \"My Type\" was released.\n\nOn October 1, 2015, iKON released the first half of Welcome Back, along with two music videos for their promotional singles \"Airplane\" and \"Rhythm Ta.\" Two additional singles, \"Apology\" and \"Anthem\" were released on November 16, 2015, as part of the rescheduling of the release of the full album. iKON's first studio full album was released on December 24, 2015, with the title tracks \"What's Wrong?\" and \"Dumb & Dumber\".\n\niKON's leader B.I was involved in the song composition for the majority of the tracks in the full album.\n\nCommercial performance\nWelcome Back Half Album charted at number one on the Gaon Album Chart selling 82,208 copies in its first month and 3,463 in the second month. The full album also charted at number one, with a total of 52,312 copies sold in the first month of release. In the year-end chart, the album reportedly sold a total of 117,483 copies.\n\nOn the Oricon Chart, the half album charted at 26 and the full album charted at 22. On January 13, 2016, the Japanese version of the album was released and 53,207 copies were sold in the first day, topping the Oricon daily chart. With a total of 61,508 copies sold in its first week of release, the Japanese album charted third on the Oricon chart. In October 2016, sales of the album had passed the 150,000 copies mark, and its Japanese version had passed the 90,000 copies mark.\n\n\"My Type\" was released along with a music video on 15 September 2015. Within 24 hours of its release, the music video surpassed 1.7 million views on YouTube. The group took their first music show win with the single on 26 September 2015 on MBC's Music Core, even though they had yet to make their first official live appearance. On 24 September, \"My Type\" achieved a 'triple crown' on the Gaon chart, having taken the number one spot on the digital, download, and streaming charts simultaneously for the 39th week of 2015. On 18 September, the single became number one on the music video chart of Chinese music streaming sites QQ Music and Youku. iKon also trended on Weibo, where they were reportedly searched 1.3 billion times. \"My Type\" was the 34th best selling song of 2015 by Gaon Music chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nHalf Album\n\nFull Album\n\nSales\n\nAwards\n\nMusic programs\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2015 debut albums\nYG Entertainment albums\nKorean-language albums\nAlbums produced by Teddy Park\nIKon albums"
] |
[
"Sufjan Stevens",
"The BQE",
"What was the BQE?",
"\"symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway\",",
"Was it a show or a type of album?",
"was manifested in a live show."
] |
C_66ddf01a02c24cf5bcc5e4ea10519d84_1
|
Was the show successful?
| 3 |
Was The BQE successful?
|
Sufjan Stevens
|
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 mm film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1-3, 2007. The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. The multimedia package was released on October 20, 2009. The release included a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. A limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula hooping wonder women, the Hooper Heroes, was also released. CANNOTANSWER
|
The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising.
|
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
His debut album, A Sun Came, was released in 2000 on the Asthmatic Kitty label, which he co-founded with his stepfather. He received wide recognition for his 2005 album Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album. Stevens later contributed to the soundtrack of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the soundtrack's lead single, "Mystery of Love".
Stevens has released albums of varying styles, from the electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit and the lo-fi folk of Seven Swans to the symphonic instrumentation of Illinois and Christmas-themed Songs for Christmas. He employs various instruments, often playing many of them himself on the same recording. Stevens' music is also known for exploring various themes, particularly religion and spirituality. Stevens' ninth and latest studio album, Convocations, was released in 2021.
Early life
Stevens was born in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of nine, when his family moved to Alanson, Michigan, in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. He was raised by his father, Rasjid, and his stepmother, Pat, only occasionally visiting his mother, Carrie, in Oregon after she married her second husband, Lowell Brams. Brams later became the head of Stevens' record label Asthmatic Kitty. His brother Marzuki Stevens is a former professional road runner. Stevens is of Lithuanian and Greek descent.
Stevens attended the Detroit Waldorf School, Alanson Public Schools and Interlochen Arts Academy, and graduated from Harbor Light Christian School. He then attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and then earned an MFA from The New School in New York City.
Sufjan is an Armenian name that means "comes with a sword". The name most famously belonged to Abu Sufyan, a figure from early Islamic history. The name was given to Stevens by the founder of Subud, an interfaith spiritual community to which his parents belonged when he was born.
Career
Early career and the Fifty States Project (1995–2006)
Stevens began his musical career as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band from Holland, Michigan, as well as garage band Con Los Dudes. He also played (and continues to play) various instruments for Danielson Famile. During his final semester at Hope College, Stevens wrote and recorded his debut solo album, A Sun Came, which he released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. He later moved to New York City, where he enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research. During his time at the New School, Stevens developed a preoccupation with the short story form, which he believed would lead him to write a novel, but ultimately returned him to songwriting.
While in New York, Stevens composed and recorded the music for his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle based around the animals of the Chinese zodiac that delved into electronica.
Stevens followed this with the album Michigan, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals. It includes odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith, sorrow, love, and the regeneration of Michigan. Beginning with the album, Stevens announced an intent to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, which he termed the Fifty States Project. Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004. Stevens did not leave his job in the children's book division at Time Warner until touring for Seven Swans.
Next, he released the second in the Fifty States project, titled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville; the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the death of a friend on Casimir Pulaski Day, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Stevens had spent the second half of 2004 researching and writing material for the album. As with Michigan, Stevens used the state of Illinois as a leaping-off point for his more personal explorations of faith, family, love, and location. Though slated for release on July 5, 2005, the album was briefly delayed by legal issues regarding the use of an image of Superman in the original album cover artwork. In the double vinyl release, a balloon sticker was placed over Superman on the cover art of the first 5,000 copies. The next printings had an empty space where the Superman image was, as with the CD release. Illinois was widely acclaimed and was the highest-rated album of 2005 on the review aggregator website Metacritic. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album of the Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist of the Year. Pitchfork, No Ripcord, and Paste magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005, and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to noteworthy albums selling fewer than 500,000 copies, for Illinois.
In April 2006, Stevens announced that 21 pieces of music he had culled from the Illinois recording sessions would be incorporated into a new album, called The Avalanche, which was released on July 11, 2006. On September 11, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stevens debuted a new composition, a ten-minute-plus piece titled "Majesty Snowbird". On November 21, 2006, a five CD box set Songs for Christmas was released, which contains originals and Christmas standards recorded every year since 2001 (except 2004). Stevens undertook in the project initially as an exercise to make himself 'appreciate' Christmas more. The songs were the work of an annual collaboration between Stevens and different collaborators, including minister Vito Aiuto; the songs themselves were distributed to friends and family.
Although Stevens' subsequent work was sometimes speculated to tie into future "States" projects, and Stevens himself would make occasional statements alluding to the future of the project, Stevens later admitted that the project had been a "promotional gimmick" and not one he had seriously intended to complete. In November 2009, Stevens admitted to Exclaim! magazine, in regard to the fact that he recently called his fifty-state project a joke, that "I don't really have as much faith in my work as I used to, but I think that's healthy. I think it's allowed me to be less precious about how I work and write. And maybe it's okay for us to take it less seriously."
Soundtrack album and various collaborative projects (2007–2009)
Over the 2005 winter holidays, Stevens recorded an album with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In April 2006, Pitchfork erroneously announced that Stevens and Thomas were having a baby together, and were forced to print a retraction. Witmer and Thomas later admitted it was an April Fools' prank. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album titled These Friends of Mine. The album was released in physical form on March 13, 2007.
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn–Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1–3, 2007.
The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. In April 2007, in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Stevens made unannounced appearances on Thomas's tour in support of this album. In 2007, he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon standing on a roof in Cincinnati. In 2007, he played shows sporadically, including playing at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Stage concerts.
Stevens has also worked as an essayist, contributing to Asthmatic Kitty Records' "Sidebar" feature and Topic Magazine. He wrote the introduction to the 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a short story about his early childhood education and learning to read titled How I Trumped Rudolf Steiner and Overcame the Tribulations of Illiteracy, One Snickers Bar at a Time. That winter, he hosted an "Xmas Song Exchange Contest" in which winner Alec Duffy won exclusive rights to the original Stevens song "Lonely Man of Winter". The track could only be heard by attending private listening parties at Duffy's home in Brooklyn and at places around the world until 2018, when Duffy negotiated with Asthmatic Kitty Records to release the song with all proceeds going towards Duffy's organization JACK.
Stevens has contributed to the music of Denison Witmer, Soul-Junk, Half-handed Cloud, Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, Serena-Maneesh, Castanets, Will Stratton, Shannon Stephens, Clare & the Reasons, Little Scream, and Liz Janes. In 2007 alone, Stevens played piano on The National's album Boxer, produced and contributed many instrumental tracks to Rosie Thomas's album These Friends of Mine, multiple instruments on Ben + Vesper's album All This Could Kill You and oboe and vocals to David Garland's 2007 album Noise in You.
He has contributed covers of Tim Buckley ("She Is"), Joni Mitchell ("Free Man in Paris"), Daniel Johnston ("Worried Shoes"), John Fahey ("Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at Magruder Park"), The Innocence Mission ("The Lakes of Canada"), Bob Dylan ("Ring Them Bells"), Drake ("Hotline Bling"), Prince ("Kiss") and The Beatles ("What Goes On") to various tribute albums. His versions of "Free Man in Paris" and "What Goes On" are notable for only retaining the lyrics of the original, as Stevens has taken his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement. His rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has a similar rearranged melody and arrangement as well as a whole new verse.
His songs "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" were featured in the 2006 British comedy-drama Driving Lessons, starring Harry Potters Julie Walters and Rupert Grint. In 2008, he produced Welcome to The Welcome Wagon, the debut album of Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo Vito and Monique Aiuto, The Welcome Wagon.
In February 2009, Stevens contributed "You Are the Blood" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization. In April 2009, Stevens uploaded a song about director Sofia Coppola online. This song was written while Stevens was in college, from a series of songs about names.
Stevens recalled:
A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names. Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of songs for names. [...] Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical, musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear. And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually, my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching) completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food! That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes, forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking?
Solo studio albums (2009–2011)
In September 2009, Stevens began performing four new songs while on his fall tour, "All Delighted People", "Impossible Soul", "Too Much" and "Age of Adz". That year Stevens contributed to an album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, entitled Music for Insomnia. The album was released December 8, 2009. On October 6, 2009, Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, released an album of versions of his 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit rearranged for strings and performed by the Osso String Quartet, entitled Run Rabbit Run.
In 2010, Stevens was featured on The National's album High Violet, released in May, and sang backing vocals for the band on the Late Show with David Letterman. Following the release of High Violet, band frontman Matt Berninger mentioned that Stevens was recording a new album in the band's studio and that The National would appear on some of the tracks. In early August, Stevens announced North American tour dates across dozens of cities. On August 20, 2010, Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly released a new collection of tracks, the All Delighted People EP, for digital download. The EP is built around two versions of the title track, "All Delighted People". The EP surprisingly rose to #27 on the Billboard 200 albums solely through its digital sales. On August 26, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would release his newest full-length album, The Age of Adz, on October 12. NPR streamed the album until it was released on October 12, 2010.
The two albums featured a wide range of arrangements, from orchestral to electronic. Song lengths were also extended; the track "Djohariah" from All Delighted People is 17 minutes long, while "Impossible Soul" from The Age of Adz is 25 minutes long. The albums also feature many styles from disco to folk.
Stevens has stated in interviews that in 2009 and 2010 he suffered from a mysterious debilitating virus infection that affected his nervous system. He experienced chronic pain and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."
On October 12, 2010, Stevens began his North American tour in Montreal, featuring virtually all new material. The tour lasted just over a month and ended on November 15, 2010, in New York City. Stevens toured Australia and New Zealand in early 2011, featured as part of the Sydney Festival, and appeared on-stage with The National during the last of three sold-out Auckland shows. He also toured Europe and the United Kingdom in April and May 2011, playing there for the first time in five years. His shows mostly consisted of new material, but he did play many older tracks from Seven Swans and Illinois. Stevens ended the Age of Adz tour with two shows in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.
Further collaborative projects (2012–2014)
On February 27, 2012, it was announced Stevens would release a collaborative EP titled Beak & Claw, on March 20, with artists Son Lux and Serengeti under the name S / S / S on the Anticon record label. Stevens released a 7" with close friend Rosie Thomas for Record Store Day 2012, titled Hit & Run Vol. 1. He also collaborated with choreographer Justin Peck on two ballets for the New York City Ballet: Year of the Rabbit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014), both to great critical acclaim. Stevens, along with fellow Brooklyn musicians Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, began performing their classical project Planetarium, a song-cycle based around the planets in our solar system in countries such as England, The Netherlands, Australia and France from March to July 2012.
On October 2, 2012, it was announced that Stevens would release a second set of Christmas albums, titled Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6–10, on November 13, 2012. Silver & Gold contains 58 songs, allowing for a total of 100 when combined with his first set of Christmas albums, Songs for Christmas. To support this new release, Stevens performed in 24 cities around the United States for his 2012 tour titled "The Sirfjam Stephanapolous Christmas Sing-a-Long Seasonal Affective Disorder Spectacular Music Pageant Variety Show Disaster". On December 11, 2012, Stevens released Chopped and Scrooged, a Christmas-themed hip-hop mixtape featuring music from Silver & Gold.
As a part of Joyful Noise's 2013 Flexi Disc Series, Stevens and Cat Martino, of Stranger Cat, recorded the single "Take the Time". Martino has contributed to many of Stevens' past projects, including The Age of Adz. On March 18, 2014, Stevens released the self-titled album, Sisyphus, with Son Lux and rapper Serengeti.
Carrie & Lowell (2015–2017)
On January 12, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced that Stevens would release a new album called Carrie & Lowell. Stevens shared the first single from the album, "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross", on February 16, 2015. Carrie & Lowell was released on March 31, 2015. The album garnered critical acclaim upon its release. Stereogum placed the album on its best albums of the decade list in 16th place and described it as "an elegant heartbreaker of an album", while Consequence of Sound ranked it the 43rd best album of the decade, calling it "a special brew that makes even the most intimate personal moment feel parabolic".
The album follows the nuances and trials of life with Stevens' mother, Carrie, who was diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic, was addicted to drugs, and abandoned him when he was a year old; it also includes Stevens' stepfather, Lowell Brams. Stevens also stated that the songwriting for the album was incited by his process of grieving and coming to terms with his and his mother's relationship following his mother's death due to stomach cancer in 2012. On January 26, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced a tour of North America, which began in April 2015, to coincide with the new album. Stevens also headlined the End of the Road Festival in the United Kingdom in September. On July 21, a second set of U.S. tour dates, which took place in October and November 2015, was announced.
After Stevens performed new compositions about the solar system alongside composers Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner in Amsterdam in April 2012, it was reported in March 2017 that the three and James McAlister would produce an album. The "80-minute concept album", titled Planetarium, was released in July 2017. On April 28, 2017, a live album and concert film, Carrie & Lowell Live was released, featuring new interpretations, re-workings and expansions of the songs from Carrie & Lowell. In addition to the live album, Stevens announced another Carrie & Lowell companion piece, The Greatest Gift, released on November 24. It includes four unreleased songs from the album sessions, as well as several remixes and a demo.
Call Me by Your Name and The Ascension (2017–2020)
In January 2017, it was announced that Stevens would contribute original songs written and recorded by himself for the coming-of-age romantic drama film Call Me by Your Name. The film was released on November 24, 2017, by Sony Pictures Classics. The soundtrack of the film features two new songs and a remix of an existing song by Stevens: "Visions of Gideon", which has been described as containing "lush orchestrations" and "staccato-heavy piano refrains", "Mystery of Love", which was featured in the film's trailer as well as the film itself, and an "ethereal piano arrangement" of The Age of Adz track "Futile Devices". In his review of the film, Consequence of Sound writer Dominick Suzanne-Mayer praised Stevens' work as a composer on the film, noting that he "has a perfect ear for the film's portrayal of a summer that's getting shorter by the day." In January 2018, "Mystery of Love" earned a nomination for the year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. Later in the year, the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The song was featured in the second season of the Netflix series Sex Education.
In December 2017, Stevens released two versions of "Tonya Harding", a song about the figure skater of the same name. The song's video shows a clip of the eponymous skater performing at the 1991 US Figure Skating Championships. Two days later, the single was offered for digital download and streaming, to be followed later by a cassette and vinyl release, in two versions, the one featured in the video (subtitled "in D major") and a piano-only arrangement ("in E♭ major"); in a short essay, Stevens revealed his intention to write a song about Harding since 1991. According to Stevens, "I've been trying to write a Tonya Harding song since I first saw her skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1991. She's a complicated subject for a song partly because the hard facts of her life are so strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American." Stevens later revealed that the song was offered to the producers to the biographical film I, Tonya, which was released in the same period, but that they decided not to include it in the film.
In October 2018, Stevens performed and recorded with pop music artist Angelo De Augustine a collaborative duo of the latter's "Time" single. On May 29, 2019, Stevens released two new songs, respectively entitled "Love Yourself" and "With My Whole Heart", which were released in celebration of Pride Month. Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork called "With My Whole Heart" "five minutes of unabashed and (relatively) unadorned inspirational soft rock" and "Love Yourself" "similarly glowing". Pride-themed T-shirts designed by Stevens also debuted alongside the singles. He later stated that a portion of the song and shirts' proceeds would go to the Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, two organizations which aim to help LGBT youth. In October 2019, Stevens released an album entitled The Decalogue with pianist Timo Andres. It is based on a ballet of the same name by Justin Peck, composed by Stevens.
On March 24, 2020, Stevens released a collaborative album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, titled Aporia. In June, Stevens announced his eighth studio album, titled The Ascension, along with the album's lead single "America", which was released on July 3. The album's second single, "Video Game", was released on August 13, and the third single, "Sugar", was released on September 15. The Ascension was released in full on September 25.
Recent works (2021–present)
On May 6, 2021, Stevens released a five-volume album of meditation music, called Convocations. On July 7, 2021, Stevens announced the release of a collaborative album, called A Beginner's Mind, that he recorded with fellow folk singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine. On the same day, they unveiled the cover and the first two singles, "Reach Out" and "Olympus". A Beginner's Mind is a concept album, each track being inspired by a different film from either the 20th or 21st century.
Artistry
Musical style
Stevens' sound has been most generally associated with genres such as indie folk, alternative rock, indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, chamber pop, folk pop, avant-garde folk, lo-fi folk, and electronica. A multi-instrumentalist, Stevens is known for his frequent use of the banjo, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, woodwinds, and several other instruments on his records, layered through the use of multitrack recording.
Themes
Stevens' work is known to explore themes of love, religion, outer space, and grief.
Despite many of his songs having spiritual allusions, Stevens does not identify as a contemporary Christian music artist or frequently discuss religion with the press. He told The Village Voice: "I don't think music media is the real forum for theological discussions. I think I've said things and sung about things that probably weren't appropriate for this kind of form. And I just feel like it's not my work or my place to be making claims and statements because I often think it's misunderstood."
During a 2004 interview with Adrian Pannett for Comes with a Smile magazine, when asked how important faith was to his music, he said "I don't like talking about that stuff in the public forum because, I think, certain themes and convictions are meant for personal conversation." In a 2006 interview, he said "It's not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance (giving a speech or tying my shoes), I am living and moving and being."
Personal life
Stevens has resided in Upstate New York near the Catskill Mountains since 2019. Before this, he lived in New York City for 20 years. He identifies as a Christian. Stevens also stated in 2005 that he attended an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church.
While in school, Stevens studied the oboe and English horn, which he plays on his albums. Stevens did not learn to play the guitar until his time at Hope College.
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"|Academy Awards
| 2018
|rowspan="5"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|AMFT Awards
| 2017
| Best Song Written For Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Awards Circuit Community Awards
| 2017
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics Choice Awards
| 2018
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|David di Donatello Awards
| 2019
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Dorian Awards
| 2019
| 2018 Oscar's Performance
| TV Musical Performance of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Georgia Film Critics Association
| 2018
|rowspan="2"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="4" scope="row"|Gold Derby Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| rowspan="2"|Original Song
|
| rowspan="4"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|"Visions of Gideon"
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2020
| rowspan="2"|Original Song of the Decade
|
|-
|rowspan="4"|"Mystery of Love"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Grammy Awards
| 2019
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
| 2018
| Best Song/Recording Created for a Film
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hawaii Film Critics Society
| 2018
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Houston Film Critics Society Awards
| 2018
|"Visions of Gideon"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|International Cinephile Society Awards
| 2018
|' Call Me By Your Name
| Best Original Score
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|International Online Cinema Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! scope="row"|New Mexico Film Critics
| 2017
|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|Online Film & Television Association
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Music, Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! rowspan="7" scope="row"|PLUG Independent Music Awards
| rowspan="6"|2006
| rowspan="3"|" Illinois"
| Album of the Year
|
| rowspan="7"|
|-
| Album/Art Packaging of the Year
|
|-
|Indie Rock Album of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Himself
|Artist of the Year
|
|-
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
|"Chicago"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|2007
|Himself
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
! scope="row"|Shortlist Music Prize
| 2005
| " Illinois"
|
|
|
|-
Discography
Studio albums
A Sun Came (1999)
Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001)
Michigan (2003)
Seven Swans (2004)
Illinois (2005)
The Age of Adz (2010)
Carrie & Lowell (2015)
The Ascension (2020)
Convocations (2021) (five-volume collection)
Collaborative albums
Planetarium (2017), with Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and James McAlister
The Decalogue (2019), with Timo Andres
Aporia (2020), with Lowell Brams
A Beginner's Mind (2021), with Angelo De Augustine
References
External links
1975 births
21st-century American singers
21st-century multi-instrumentalists
American banjoists
American electronic musicians
American experimental musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk rock musicians
American folk singers
American people of Greek descent
American indie pop musicians
American indie rock musicians
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American oboists
American people of Lithuanian descent
American rock guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Asthmatic Kitty artists
Baroque pop musicians
Christians from Michigan
Cor anglais players
Folk musicians from Michigan
Guitarists from Michigan
Record producers from Michigan
Hope College alumni
Indie folk musicians
Living people
Male oboists
Musicians from Detroit
People from Holland, Michigan
People from Kensington, Brooklyn
Rock oboists
Rough Trade Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Michigan
Sisyphus (hip hop group) members
Waldorf school alumni
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
People from Petoskey, Michigan
| true |
[
"Merry Legs (1911-1932) was a Tennessee Walking Horse mare who was given foundation registration for her influence as a broodmare. She was also a successful show horse.\n\nLife\nMerry Legs was foaled in April 1911. She was a bay with sabino markings. She was sired by the foundation stallion Black Allan F-1, out of the American Saddlebred mare Nell Dement, registration number F-3, and bred by the early breeder Albert Dement. She was a large mare at maturity, standing high and weighing . Merry Legs was a successful show horse; as a three-year-old, she won the stake class at the Tennessee State Fair. She was also successful as a broodmare, giving birth to 13 foals, among them the well-known Bud Allen, Last Chance, Major Allen, and Merry Boy. For her influence on the breed, she was given the foundation number F-4 when the TWHBEA was formed in 1935. She died in 1932.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual Tennessee Walking Horses\n1911 animal births\n1932 animal deaths",
"Time for Terry was an Australian TV series which ran in from 1964–1966. It was a variety show that was hosted by English comedian and entertainer as well as jazz musician Terry O'Neill. The show was a forerunner to such shows as The Midday Show and Hey Hey It's Saturday, combining variety and music with game show elements. The show was so successful for HSV7 that it launched a season of Night-time for Terry in 1966. O'Neill had run a similar successful show in England called The One O'Clock Show. Amongst other highlights, the show was responsible for launching the careers of Pat Carroll and Olivia Newton-John, whose farewell to Australian television before leaving for England was broadcast on the show. Terry's then wife Peggy Haig (sister of English comic actor Jack Haig) made frequent appearances as did their daughter Coral Kelly - later to become prolific television writer Coral Drouyn.\n\nCast\n Vi Greenhalf\n Joe Hudson\n Ivan Hutchinson\n Brian Naylor\n Olivia Newton-John\n Ian Turpie\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1960s Australian game shows\n1965 Australian television series debuts\n1965 Australian television series endings"
] |
[
"Sufjan Stevens",
"The BQE",
"What was the BQE?",
"\"symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway\",",
"Was it a show or a type of album?",
"was manifested in a live show.",
"Was the show successful?",
"The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising."
] |
C_66ddf01a02c24cf5bcc5e4ea10519d84_1
|
What did critics say about the BQE?
| 4 |
What did critics say about the BQE?
|
Sufjan Stevens
|
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 mm film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1-3, 2007. The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. The multimedia package was released on October 20, 2009. The release included a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. A limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula hooping wonder women, the Hooper Heroes, was also released. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
His debut album, A Sun Came, was released in 2000 on the Asthmatic Kitty label, which he co-founded with his stepfather. He received wide recognition for his 2005 album Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album. Stevens later contributed to the soundtrack of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the soundtrack's lead single, "Mystery of Love".
Stevens has released albums of varying styles, from the electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit and the lo-fi folk of Seven Swans to the symphonic instrumentation of Illinois and Christmas-themed Songs for Christmas. He employs various instruments, often playing many of them himself on the same recording. Stevens' music is also known for exploring various themes, particularly religion and spirituality. Stevens' ninth and latest studio album, Convocations, was released in 2021.
Early life
Stevens was born in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of nine, when his family moved to Alanson, Michigan, in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. He was raised by his father, Rasjid, and his stepmother, Pat, only occasionally visiting his mother, Carrie, in Oregon after she married her second husband, Lowell Brams. Brams later became the head of Stevens' record label Asthmatic Kitty. His brother Marzuki Stevens is a former professional road runner. Stevens is of Lithuanian and Greek descent.
Stevens attended the Detroit Waldorf School, Alanson Public Schools and Interlochen Arts Academy, and graduated from Harbor Light Christian School. He then attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and then earned an MFA from The New School in New York City.
Sufjan is an Armenian name that means "comes with a sword". The name most famously belonged to Abu Sufyan, a figure from early Islamic history. The name was given to Stevens by the founder of Subud, an interfaith spiritual community to which his parents belonged when he was born.
Career
Early career and the Fifty States Project (1995–2006)
Stevens began his musical career as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band from Holland, Michigan, as well as garage band Con Los Dudes. He also played (and continues to play) various instruments for Danielson Famile. During his final semester at Hope College, Stevens wrote and recorded his debut solo album, A Sun Came, which he released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. He later moved to New York City, where he enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research. During his time at the New School, Stevens developed a preoccupation with the short story form, which he believed would lead him to write a novel, but ultimately returned him to songwriting.
While in New York, Stevens composed and recorded the music for his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle based around the animals of the Chinese zodiac that delved into electronica.
Stevens followed this with the album Michigan, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals. It includes odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith, sorrow, love, and the regeneration of Michigan. Beginning with the album, Stevens announced an intent to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, which he termed the Fifty States Project. Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004. Stevens did not leave his job in the children's book division at Time Warner until touring for Seven Swans.
Next, he released the second in the Fifty States project, titled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville; the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the death of a friend on Casimir Pulaski Day, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Stevens had spent the second half of 2004 researching and writing material for the album. As with Michigan, Stevens used the state of Illinois as a leaping-off point for his more personal explorations of faith, family, love, and location. Though slated for release on July 5, 2005, the album was briefly delayed by legal issues regarding the use of an image of Superman in the original album cover artwork. In the double vinyl release, a balloon sticker was placed over Superman on the cover art of the first 5,000 copies. The next printings had an empty space where the Superman image was, as with the CD release. Illinois was widely acclaimed and was the highest-rated album of 2005 on the review aggregator website Metacritic. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album of the Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist of the Year. Pitchfork, No Ripcord, and Paste magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005, and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to noteworthy albums selling fewer than 500,000 copies, for Illinois.
In April 2006, Stevens announced that 21 pieces of music he had culled from the Illinois recording sessions would be incorporated into a new album, called The Avalanche, which was released on July 11, 2006. On September 11, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stevens debuted a new composition, a ten-minute-plus piece titled "Majesty Snowbird". On November 21, 2006, a five CD box set Songs for Christmas was released, which contains originals and Christmas standards recorded every year since 2001 (except 2004). Stevens undertook in the project initially as an exercise to make himself 'appreciate' Christmas more. The songs were the work of an annual collaboration between Stevens and different collaborators, including minister Vito Aiuto; the songs themselves were distributed to friends and family.
Although Stevens' subsequent work was sometimes speculated to tie into future "States" projects, and Stevens himself would make occasional statements alluding to the future of the project, Stevens later admitted that the project had been a "promotional gimmick" and not one he had seriously intended to complete. In November 2009, Stevens admitted to Exclaim! magazine, in regard to the fact that he recently called his fifty-state project a joke, that "I don't really have as much faith in my work as I used to, but I think that's healthy. I think it's allowed me to be less precious about how I work and write. And maybe it's okay for us to take it less seriously."
Soundtrack album and various collaborative projects (2007–2009)
Over the 2005 winter holidays, Stevens recorded an album with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In April 2006, Pitchfork erroneously announced that Stevens and Thomas were having a baby together, and were forced to print a retraction. Witmer and Thomas later admitted it was an April Fools' prank. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album titled These Friends of Mine. The album was released in physical form on March 13, 2007.
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn–Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1–3, 2007.
The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. In April 2007, in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Stevens made unannounced appearances on Thomas's tour in support of this album. In 2007, he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon standing on a roof in Cincinnati. In 2007, he played shows sporadically, including playing at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Stage concerts.
Stevens has also worked as an essayist, contributing to Asthmatic Kitty Records' "Sidebar" feature and Topic Magazine. He wrote the introduction to the 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a short story about his early childhood education and learning to read titled How I Trumped Rudolf Steiner and Overcame the Tribulations of Illiteracy, One Snickers Bar at a Time. That winter, he hosted an "Xmas Song Exchange Contest" in which winner Alec Duffy won exclusive rights to the original Stevens song "Lonely Man of Winter". The track could only be heard by attending private listening parties at Duffy's home in Brooklyn and at places around the world until 2018, when Duffy negotiated with Asthmatic Kitty Records to release the song with all proceeds going towards Duffy's organization JACK.
Stevens has contributed to the music of Denison Witmer, Soul-Junk, Half-handed Cloud, Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, Serena-Maneesh, Castanets, Will Stratton, Shannon Stephens, Clare & the Reasons, Little Scream, and Liz Janes. In 2007 alone, Stevens played piano on The National's album Boxer, produced and contributed many instrumental tracks to Rosie Thomas's album These Friends of Mine, multiple instruments on Ben + Vesper's album All This Could Kill You and oboe and vocals to David Garland's 2007 album Noise in You.
He has contributed covers of Tim Buckley ("She Is"), Joni Mitchell ("Free Man in Paris"), Daniel Johnston ("Worried Shoes"), John Fahey ("Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at Magruder Park"), The Innocence Mission ("The Lakes of Canada"), Bob Dylan ("Ring Them Bells"), Drake ("Hotline Bling"), Prince ("Kiss") and The Beatles ("What Goes On") to various tribute albums. His versions of "Free Man in Paris" and "What Goes On" are notable for only retaining the lyrics of the original, as Stevens has taken his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement. His rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has a similar rearranged melody and arrangement as well as a whole new verse.
His songs "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" were featured in the 2006 British comedy-drama Driving Lessons, starring Harry Potters Julie Walters and Rupert Grint. In 2008, he produced Welcome to The Welcome Wagon, the debut album of Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo Vito and Monique Aiuto, The Welcome Wagon.
In February 2009, Stevens contributed "You Are the Blood" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization. In April 2009, Stevens uploaded a song about director Sofia Coppola online. This song was written while Stevens was in college, from a series of songs about names.
Stevens recalled:
A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names. Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of songs for names. [...] Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical, musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear. And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually, my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching) completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food! That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes, forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking?
Solo studio albums (2009–2011)
In September 2009, Stevens began performing four new songs while on his fall tour, "All Delighted People", "Impossible Soul", "Too Much" and "Age of Adz". That year Stevens contributed to an album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, entitled Music for Insomnia. The album was released December 8, 2009. On October 6, 2009, Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, released an album of versions of his 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit rearranged for strings and performed by the Osso String Quartet, entitled Run Rabbit Run.
In 2010, Stevens was featured on The National's album High Violet, released in May, and sang backing vocals for the band on the Late Show with David Letterman. Following the release of High Violet, band frontman Matt Berninger mentioned that Stevens was recording a new album in the band's studio and that The National would appear on some of the tracks. In early August, Stevens announced North American tour dates across dozens of cities. On August 20, 2010, Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly released a new collection of tracks, the All Delighted People EP, for digital download. The EP is built around two versions of the title track, "All Delighted People". The EP surprisingly rose to #27 on the Billboard 200 albums solely through its digital sales. On August 26, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would release his newest full-length album, The Age of Adz, on October 12. NPR streamed the album until it was released on October 12, 2010.
The two albums featured a wide range of arrangements, from orchestral to electronic. Song lengths were also extended; the track "Djohariah" from All Delighted People is 17 minutes long, while "Impossible Soul" from The Age of Adz is 25 minutes long. The albums also feature many styles from disco to folk.
Stevens has stated in interviews that in 2009 and 2010 he suffered from a mysterious debilitating virus infection that affected his nervous system. He experienced chronic pain and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."
On October 12, 2010, Stevens began his North American tour in Montreal, featuring virtually all new material. The tour lasted just over a month and ended on November 15, 2010, in New York City. Stevens toured Australia and New Zealand in early 2011, featured as part of the Sydney Festival, and appeared on-stage with The National during the last of three sold-out Auckland shows. He also toured Europe and the United Kingdom in April and May 2011, playing there for the first time in five years. His shows mostly consisted of new material, but he did play many older tracks from Seven Swans and Illinois. Stevens ended the Age of Adz tour with two shows in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.
Further collaborative projects (2012–2014)
On February 27, 2012, it was announced Stevens would release a collaborative EP titled Beak & Claw, on March 20, with artists Son Lux and Serengeti under the name S / S / S on the Anticon record label. Stevens released a 7" with close friend Rosie Thomas for Record Store Day 2012, titled Hit & Run Vol. 1. He also collaborated with choreographer Justin Peck on two ballets for the New York City Ballet: Year of the Rabbit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014), both to great critical acclaim. Stevens, along with fellow Brooklyn musicians Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, began performing their classical project Planetarium, a song-cycle based around the planets in our solar system in countries such as England, The Netherlands, Australia and France from March to July 2012.
On October 2, 2012, it was announced that Stevens would release a second set of Christmas albums, titled Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6–10, on November 13, 2012. Silver & Gold contains 58 songs, allowing for a total of 100 when combined with his first set of Christmas albums, Songs for Christmas. To support this new release, Stevens performed in 24 cities around the United States for his 2012 tour titled "The Sirfjam Stephanapolous Christmas Sing-a-Long Seasonal Affective Disorder Spectacular Music Pageant Variety Show Disaster". On December 11, 2012, Stevens released Chopped and Scrooged, a Christmas-themed hip-hop mixtape featuring music from Silver & Gold.
As a part of Joyful Noise's 2013 Flexi Disc Series, Stevens and Cat Martino, of Stranger Cat, recorded the single "Take the Time". Martino has contributed to many of Stevens' past projects, including The Age of Adz. On March 18, 2014, Stevens released the self-titled album, Sisyphus, with Son Lux and rapper Serengeti.
Carrie & Lowell (2015–2017)
On January 12, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced that Stevens would release a new album called Carrie & Lowell. Stevens shared the first single from the album, "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross", on February 16, 2015. Carrie & Lowell was released on March 31, 2015. The album garnered critical acclaim upon its release. Stereogum placed the album on its best albums of the decade list in 16th place and described it as "an elegant heartbreaker of an album", while Consequence of Sound ranked it the 43rd best album of the decade, calling it "a special brew that makes even the most intimate personal moment feel parabolic".
The album follows the nuances and trials of life with Stevens' mother, Carrie, who was diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic, was addicted to drugs, and abandoned him when he was a year old; it also includes Stevens' stepfather, Lowell Brams. Stevens also stated that the songwriting for the album was incited by his process of grieving and coming to terms with his and his mother's relationship following his mother's death due to stomach cancer in 2012. On January 26, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced a tour of North America, which began in April 2015, to coincide with the new album. Stevens also headlined the End of the Road Festival in the United Kingdom in September. On July 21, a second set of U.S. tour dates, which took place in October and November 2015, was announced.
After Stevens performed new compositions about the solar system alongside composers Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner in Amsterdam in April 2012, it was reported in March 2017 that the three and James McAlister would produce an album. The "80-minute concept album", titled Planetarium, was released in July 2017. On April 28, 2017, a live album and concert film, Carrie & Lowell Live was released, featuring new interpretations, re-workings and expansions of the songs from Carrie & Lowell. In addition to the live album, Stevens announced another Carrie & Lowell companion piece, The Greatest Gift, released on November 24. It includes four unreleased songs from the album sessions, as well as several remixes and a demo.
Call Me by Your Name and The Ascension (2017–2020)
In January 2017, it was announced that Stevens would contribute original songs written and recorded by himself for the coming-of-age romantic drama film Call Me by Your Name. The film was released on November 24, 2017, by Sony Pictures Classics. The soundtrack of the film features two new songs and a remix of an existing song by Stevens: "Visions of Gideon", which has been described as containing "lush orchestrations" and "staccato-heavy piano refrains", "Mystery of Love", which was featured in the film's trailer as well as the film itself, and an "ethereal piano arrangement" of The Age of Adz track "Futile Devices". In his review of the film, Consequence of Sound writer Dominick Suzanne-Mayer praised Stevens' work as a composer on the film, noting that he "has a perfect ear for the film's portrayal of a summer that's getting shorter by the day." In January 2018, "Mystery of Love" earned a nomination for the year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. Later in the year, the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The song was featured in the second season of the Netflix series Sex Education.
In December 2017, Stevens released two versions of "Tonya Harding", a song about the figure skater of the same name. The song's video shows a clip of the eponymous skater performing at the 1991 US Figure Skating Championships. Two days later, the single was offered for digital download and streaming, to be followed later by a cassette and vinyl release, in two versions, the one featured in the video (subtitled "in D major") and a piano-only arrangement ("in E♭ major"); in a short essay, Stevens revealed his intention to write a song about Harding since 1991. According to Stevens, "I've been trying to write a Tonya Harding song since I first saw her skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1991. She's a complicated subject for a song partly because the hard facts of her life are so strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American." Stevens later revealed that the song was offered to the producers to the biographical film I, Tonya, which was released in the same period, but that they decided not to include it in the film.
In October 2018, Stevens performed and recorded with pop music artist Angelo De Augustine a collaborative duo of the latter's "Time" single. On May 29, 2019, Stevens released two new songs, respectively entitled "Love Yourself" and "With My Whole Heart", which were released in celebration of Pride Month. Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork called "With My Whole Heart" "five minutes of unabashed and (relatively) unadorned inspirational soft rock" and "Love Yourself" "similarly glowing". Pride-themed T-shirts designed by Stevens also debuted alongside the singles. He later stated that a portion of the song and shirts' proceeds would go to the Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, two organizations which aim to help LGBT youth. In October 2019, Stevens released an album entitled The Decalogue with pianist Timo Andres. It is based on a ballet of the same name by Justin Peck, composed by Stevens.
On March 24, 2020, Stevens released a collaborative album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, titled Aporia. In June, Stevens announced his eighth studio album, titled The Ascension, along with the album's lead single "America", which was released on July 3. The album's second single, "Video Game", was released on August 13, and the third single, "Sugar", was released on September 15. The Ascension was released in full on September 25.
Recent works (2021–present)
On May 6, 2021, Stevens released a five-volume album of meditation music, called Convocations. On July 7, 2021, Stevens announced the release of a collaborative album, called A Beginner's Mind, that he recorded with fellow folk singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine. On the same day, they unveiled the cover and the first two singles, "Reach Out" and "Olympus". A Beginner's Mind is a concept album, each track being inspired by a different film from either the 20th or 21st century.
Artistry
Musical style
Stevens' sound has been most generally associated with genres such as indie folk, alternative rock, indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, chamber pop, folk pop, avant-garde folk, lo-fi folk, and electronica. A multi-instrumentalist, Stevens is known for his frequent use of the banjo, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, woodwinds, and several other instruments on his records, layered through the use of multitrack recording.
Themes
Stevens' work is known to explore themes of love, religion, outer space, and grief.
Despite many of his songs having spiritual allusions, Stevens does not identify as a contemporary Christian music artist or frequently discuss religion with the press. He told The Village Voice: "I don't think music media is the real forum for theological discussions. I think I've said things and sung about things that probably weren't appropriate for this kind of form. And I just feel like it's not my work or my place to be making claims and statements because I often think it's misunderstood."
During a 2004 interview with Adrian Pannett for Comes with a Smile magazine, when asked how important faith was to his music, he said "I don't like talking about that stuff in the public forum because, I think, certain themes and convictions are meant for personal conversation." In a 2006 interview, he said "It's not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance (giving a speech or tying my shoes), I am living and moving and being."
Personal life
Stevens has resided in Upstate New York near the Catskill Mountains since 2019. Before this, he lived in New York City for 20 years. He identifies as a Christian. Stevens also stated in 2005 that he attended an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church.
While in school, Stevens studied the oboe and English horn, which he plays on his albums. Stevens did not learn to play the guitar until his time at Hope College.
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"|Academy Awards
| 2018
|rowspan="5"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|AMFT Awards
| 2017
| Best Song Written For Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Awards Circuit Community Awards
| 2017
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics Choice Awards
| 2018
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|David di Donatello Awards
| 2019
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Dorian Awards
| 2019
| 2018 Oscar's Performance
| TV Musical Performance of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Georgia Film Critics Association
| 2018
|rowspan="2"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="4" scope="row"|Gold Derby Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| rowspan="2"|Original Song
|
| rowspan="4"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|"Visions of Gideon"
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2020
| rowspan="2"|Original Song of the Decade
|
|-
|rowspan="4"|"Mystery of Love"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Grammy Awards
| 2019
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
| 2018
| Best Song/Recording Created for a Film
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hawaii Film Critics Society
| 2018
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Houston Film Critics Society Awards
| 2018
|"Visions of Gideon"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|International Cinephile Society Awards
| 2018
|' Call Me By Your Name
| Best Original Score
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|International Online Cinema Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! scope="row"|New Mexico Film Critics
| 2017
|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|Online Film & Television Association
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Music, Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! rowspan="7" scope="row"|PLUG Independent Music Awards
| rowspan="6"|2006
| rowspan="3"|" Illinois"
| Album of the Year
|
| rowspan="7"|
|-
| Album/Art Packaging of the Year
|
|-
|Indie Rock Album of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Himself
|Artist of the Year
|
|-
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
|"Chicago"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|2007
|Himself
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
! scope="row"|Shortlist Music Prize
| 2005
| " Illinois"
|
|
|
|-
Discography
Studio albums
A Sun Came (1999)
Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001)
Michigan (2003)
Seven Swans (2004)
Illinois (2005)
The Age of Adz (2010)
Carrie & Lowell (2015)
The Ascension (2020)
Convocations (2021) (five-volume collection)
Collaborative albums
Planetarium (2017), with Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and James McAlister
The Decalogue (2019), with Timo Andres
Aporia (2020), with Lowell Brams
A Beginner's Mind (2021), with Angelo De Augustine
References
External links
1975 births
21st-century American singers
21st-century multi-instrumentalists
American banjoists
American electronic musicians
American experimental musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk rock musicians
American folk singers
American people of Greek descent
American indie pop musicians
American indie rock musicians
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American oboists
American people of Lithuanian descent
American rock guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Asthmatic Kitty artists
Baroque pop musicians
Christians from Michigan
Cor anglais players
Folk musicians from Michigan
Guitarists from Michigan
Record producers from Michigan
Hope College alumni
Indie folk musicians
Living people
Male oboists
Musicians from Detroit
People from Holland, Michigan
People from Kensington, Brooklyn
Rock oboists
Rough Trade Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Michigan
Sisyphus (hip hop group) members
Waldorf school alumni
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
People from Petoskey, Michigan
| false |
[
"BQE or bqe may stand for:\n\n Brooklyn–Queens Expressway\n The BQE (soundtrack)\n ISO 639-3 code Navarro-Lapurdian dialect.\n IATA code Bubaque Airport",
"The BQE is a mixed-medium artistic exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway by Sufjan Stevens. The project originally manifested in the form of a live show, performed on November 1–3, 2007. The show consisted of an original film, directed and written by Stevens, accompanied by an orchestra performing a live soundtrack.\n\nThe album recording was made after the rehearsals for the show. It was recorded live during a one-day session in Legacy Studios' A509 orchestral suite (since closed and demolished) with most of the group in the same large room together.\n\nA multimedia package of The BQE was released on October 20, 2009. The set consists of a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queen Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. There is also a limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula-hooping wonder women, The Hooper Heroes.\n\nRegarding The BQE, Stevens said:\n\nBallet\nJustin Peck's ballet, In the Countenance of Kings, is set to music from The BQE, made for the San Francisco Ballet.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nProduction\n Alejandro Venguer, assisted by Jeff Kirby and Tyler Van Dalen – recording, legacy studios, New York City\n Casey Foubert, James McAlister, and Sufjan Stevens – additional recording, Sufjan's office in Brooklyn\n Sufjan Stevens – mixing\n Lisa Moran – production management\n Michael Atkinson – music editing, copyist\n\nPerforming artists\n\n Tim Albright – trombone\n Hideaki Aomori – clarinet\n Mat Fieldes – upright bass\n Casey Foubert – electric guitar\n Josh Frank – trumpet\n Alan Hampton – upright bass\n Marla Hansen – viola, vocals\n Jay Hassler – bass clarinet, clarinet\n Maria Bella Jeffers – cello\n Ben Lanz – trombone\n Olivier Manchon – violin\n Rob Moose – violin\n Sato Moughalian – flute, piccolo\n Damian Primis – bassoon\n\n Theo Primis – French horn\n Joey Redhage – cello\n Kyle Resnick – trumpet\n Yuuki Matthews – bass, beats\n Beth Meyers – viola\n James McAlister – drums, percussion, drum programming, sequencing, synthesizers, sound effects, etc.\n Matt Moran – drums, percussion\n Arthur Sato – oboe\n Alex Sopp – flute, alto flute, piccolo\n Hiroko Taguchi – violin\n Amie Weiss – violin\n Sufjan Stevens – \"everything else\"\n Michael Atkinson – conductor\n\nBQE Film\n Anastasia-Dyan Pridlides – botanica\n Elaine Tian – quantus\n Lindsay Brickel – electress\n Sufjan Stevens – direction, cinematography, editing\n Reuben Kleiner – cinematography, editing\n Malcolm Hearn – editing\n Bryant Fisher and Blink Digital – post-production\n\nPackaging\n Denny Renshaw – photography\n Anastasia-Dyan Pridlides – botanica\n Elaine Tian – quantus\n Lindsay Brickel – electress\n Stephen Halker – bailey\n Virginia Bradley Linzee – makeup\n Belinda Martin – wardrobe\n Caroline McAlister – costume design, costumes\n Sufjan Stevens – photography, layout, design, illustrations\n\n\"Hooper Heroes\" Comic Book/Stereoscopic Reel\n Sufjan Stevens – story, writing\n Stephen Halker – story, penciling, inking, lettering, coloring\n Heidi Cho – coloring\n David Min – coloring\n Matt Loux – cover watercolour\n Christian Ackler – cover masthead\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAsthmatic Kitty Records' page for The BQE\n\nSufjan Stevens soundtracks\nFilm soundtracks\nInterstate 78\nConcept albums\n2009 soundtrack albums\nAlbums produced by Sufjan Stevens\nAsthmatic Kitty soundtracks\nInstrumental soundtracks"
] |
[
"Sufjan Stevens",
"The BQE",
"What was the BQE?",
"\"symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway\",",
"Was it a show or a type of album?",
"was manifested in a live show.",
"Was the show successful?",
"The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising.",
"What did critics say about the BQE?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_66ddf01a02c24cf5bcc5e4ea10519d84_1
|
How long did the performance run?
| 5 |
How long did the BQE performance run?
|
Sufjan Stevens
|
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 mm film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1-3, 2007. The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. The multimedia package was released on October 20, 2009. The release included a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. A limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula hooping wonder women, the Hooper Heroes, was also released. CANNOTANSWER
|
performed on three consecutive nights from November 1-3, 2007.
|
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
His debut album, A Sun Came, was released in 2000 on the Asthmatic Kitty label, which he co-founded with his stepfather. He received wide recognition for his 2005 album Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album. Stevens later contributed to the soundtrack of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the soundtrack's lead single, "Mystery of Love".
Stevens has released albums of varying styles, from the electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit and the lo-fi folk of Seven Swans to the symphonic instrumentation of Illinois and Christmas-themed Songs for Christmas. He employs various instruments, often playing many of them himself on the same recording. Stevens' music is also known for exploring various themes, particularly religion and spirituality. Stevens' ninth and latest studio album, Convocations, was released in 2021.
Early life
Stevens was born in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of nine, when his family moved to Alanson, Michigan, in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. He was raised by his father, Rasjid, and his stepmother, Pat, only occasionally visiting his mother, Carrie, in Oregon after she married her second husband, Lowell Brams. Brams later became the head of Stevens' record label Asthmatic Kitty. His brother Marzuki Stevens is a former professional road runner. Stevens is of Lithuanian and Greek descent.
Stevens attended the Detroit Waldorf School, Alanson Public Schools and Interlochen Arts Academy, and graduated from Harbor Light Christian School. He then attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and then earned an MFA from The New School in New York City.
Sufjan is an Armenian name that means "comes with a sword". The name most famously belonged to Abu Sufyan, a figure from early Islamic history. The name was given to Stevens by the founder of Subud, an interfaith spiritual community to which his parents belonged when he was born.
Career
Early career and the Fifty States Project (1995–2006)
Stevens began his musical career as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band from Holland, Michigan, as well as garage band Con Los Dudes. He also played (and continues to play) various instruments for Danielson Famile. During his final semester at Hope College, Stevens wrote and recorded his debut solo album, A Sun Came, which he released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. He later moved to New York City, where he enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research. During his time at the New School, Stevens developed a preoccupation with the short story form, which he believed would lead him to write a novel, but ultimately returned him to songwriting.
While in New York, Stevens composed and recorded the music for his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle based around the animals of the Chinese zodiac that delved into electronica.
Stevens followed this with the album Michigan, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals. It includes odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith, sorrow, love, and the regeneration of Michigan. Beginning with the album, Stevens announced an intent to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, which he termed the Fifty States Project. Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004. Stevens did not leave his job in the children's book division at Time Warner until touring for Seven Swans.
Next, he released the second in the Fifty States project, titled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville; the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the death of a friend on Casimir Pulaski Day, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Stevens had spent the second half of 2004 researching and writing material for the album. As with Michigan, Stevens used the state of Illinois as a leaping-off point for his more personal explorations of faith, family, love, and location. Though slated for release on July 5, 2005, the album was briefly delayed by legal issues regarding the use of an image of Superman in the original album cover artwork. In the double vinyl release, a balloon sticker was placed over Superman on the cover art of the first 5,000 copies. The next printings had an empty space where the Superman image was, as with the CD release. Illinois was widely acclaimed and was the highest-rated album of 2005 on the review aggregator website Metacritic. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album of the Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist of the Year. Pitchfork, No Ripcord, and Paste magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005, and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to noteworthy albums selling fewer than 500,000 copies, for Illinois.
In April 2006, Stevens announced that 21 pieces of music he had culled from the Illinois recording sessions would be incorporated into a new album, called The Avalanche, which was released on July 11, 2006. On September 11, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stevens debuted a new composition, a ten-minute-plus piece titled "Majesty Snowbird". On November 21, 2006, a five CD box set Songs for Christmas was released, which contains originals and Christmas standards recorded every year since 2001 (except 2004). Stevens undertook in the project initially as an exercise to make himself 'appreciate' Christmas more. The songs were the work of an annual collaboration between Stevens and different collaborators, including minister Vito Aiuto; the songs themselves were distributed to friends and family.
Although Stevens' subsequent work was sometimes speculated to tie into future "States" projects, and Stevens himself would make occasional statements alluding to the future of the project, Stevens later admitted that the project had been a "promotional gimmick" and not one he had seriously intended to complete. In November 2009, Stevens admitted to Exclaim! magazine, in regard to the fact that he recently called his fifty-state project a joke, that "I don't really have as much faith in my work as I used to, but I think that's healthy. I think it's allowed me to be less precious about how I work and write. And maybe it's okay for us to take it less seriously."
Soundtrack album and various collaborative projects (2007–2009)
Over the 2005 winter holidays, Stevens recorded an album with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In April 2006, Pitchfork erroneously announced that Stevens and Thomas were having a baby together, and were forced to print a retraction. Witmer and Thomas later admitted it was an April Fools' prank. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album titled These Friends of Mine. The album was released in physical form on March 13, 2007.
On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn–Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1–3, 2007.
The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize. In April 2007, in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Stevens made unannounced appearances on Thomas's tour in support of this album. In 2007, he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon standing on a roof in Cincinnati. In 2007, he played shows sporadically, including playing at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Stage concerts.
Stevens has also worked as an essayist, contributing to Asthmatic Kitty Records' "Sidebar" feature and Topic Magazine. He wrote the introduction to the 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a short story about his early childhood education and learning to read titled How I Trumped Rudolf Steiner and Overcame the Tribulations of Illiteracy, One Snickers Bar at a Time. That winter, he hosted an "Xmas Song Exchange Contest" in which winner Alec Duffy won exclusive rights to the original Stevens song "Lonely Man of Winter". The track could only be heard by attending private listening parties at Duffy's home in Brooklyn and at places around the world until 2018, when Duffy negotiated with Asthmatic Kitty Records to release the song with all proceeds going towards Duffy's organization JACK.
Stevens has contributed to the music of Denison Witmer, Soul-Junk, Half-handed Cloud, Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, Serena-Maneesh, Castanets, Will Stratton, Shannon Stephens, Clare & the Reasons, Little Scream, and Liz Janes. In 2007 alone, Stevens played piano on The National's album Boxer, produced and contributed many instrumental tracks to Rosie Thomas's album These Friends of Mine, multiple instruments on Ben + Vesper's album All This Could Kill You and oboe and vocals to David Garland's 2007 album Noise in You.
He has contributed covers of Tim Buckley ("She Is"), Joni Mitchell ("Free Man in Paris"), Daniel Johnston ("Worried Shoes"), John Fahey ("Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at Magruder Park"), The Innocence Mission ("The Lakes of Canada"), Bob Dylan ("Ring Them Bells"), Drake ("Hotline Bling"), Prince ("Kiss") and The Beatles ("What Goes On") to various tribute albums. His versions of "Free Man in Paris" and "What Goes On" are notable for only retaining the lyrics of the original, as Stevens has taken his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement. His rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has a similar rearranged melody and arrangement as well as a whole new verse.
His songs "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" were featured in the 2006 British comedy-drama Driving Lessons, starring Harry Potters Julie Walters and Rupert Grint. In 2008, he produced Welcome to The Welcome Wagon, the debut album of Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo Vito and Monique Aiuto, The Welcome Wagon.
In February 2009, Stevens contributed "You Are the Blood" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization. In April 2009, Stevens uploaded a song about director Sofia Coppola online. This song was written while Stevens was in college, from a series of songs about names.
Stevens recalled:
A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names. Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of songs for names. [...] Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical, musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear. And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually, my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching) completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food! That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes, forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking?
Solo studio albums (2009–2011)
In September 2009, Stevens began performing four new songs while on his fall tour, "All Delighted People", "Impossible Soul", "Too Much" and "Age of Adz". That year Stevens contributed to an album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, entitled Music for Insomnia. The album was released December 8, 2009. On October 6, 2009, Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, released an album of versions of his 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit rearranged for strings and performed by the Osso String Quartet, entitled Run Rabbit Run.
In 2010, Stevens was featured on The National's album High Violet, released in May, and sang backing vocals for the band on the Late Show with David Letterman. Following the release of High Violet, band frontman Matt Berninger mentioned that Stevens was recording a new album in the band's studio and that The National would appear on some of the tracks. In early August, Stevens announced North American tour dates across dozens of cities. On August 20, 2010, Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly released a new collection of tracks, the All Delighted People EP, for digital download. The EP is built around two versions of the title track, "All Delighted People". The EP surprisingly rose to #27 on the Billboard 200 albums solely through its digital sales. On August 26, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would release his newest full-length album, The Age of Adz, on October 12. NPR streamed the album until it was released on October 12, 2010.
The two albums featured a wide range of arrangements, from orchestral to electronic. Song lengths were also extended; the track "Djohariah" from All Delighted People is 17 minutes long, while "Impossible Soul" from The Age of Adz is 25 minutes long. The albums also feature many styles from disco to folk.
Stevens has stated in interviews that in 2009 and 2010 he suffered from a mysterious debilitating virus infection that affected his nervous system. He experienced chronic pain and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."
On October 12, 2010, Stevens began his North American tour in Montreal, featuring virtually all new material. The tour lasted just over a month and ended on November 15, 2010, in New York City. Stevens toured Australia and New Zealand in early 2011, featured as part of the Sydney Festival, and appeared on-stage with The National during the last of three sold-out Auckland shows. He also toured Europe and the United Kingdom in April and May 2011, playing there for the first time in five years. His shows mostly consisted of new material, but he did play many older tracks from Seven Swans and Illinois. Stevens ended the Age of Adz tour with two shows in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.
Further collaborative projects (2012–2014)
On February 27, 2012, it was announced Stevens would release a collaborative EP titled Beak & Claw, on March 20, with artists Son Lux and Serengeti under the name S / S / S on the Anticon record label. Stevens released a 7" with close friend Rosie Thomas for Record Store Day 2012, titled Hit & Run Vol. 1. He also collaborated with choreographer Justin Peck on two ballets for the New York City Ballet: Year of the Rabbit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014), both to great critical acclaim. Stevens, along with fellow Brooklyn musicians Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, began performing their classical project Planetarium, a song-cycle based around the planets in our solar system in countries such as England, The Netherlands, Australia and France from March to July 2012.
On October 2, 2012, it was announced that Stevens would release a second set of Christmas albums, titled Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6–10, on November 13, 2012. Silver & Gold contains 58 songs, allowing for a total of 100 when combined with his first set of Christmas albums, Songs for Christmas. To support this new release, Stevens performed in 24 cities around the United States for his 2012 tour titled "The Sirfjam Stephanapolous Christmas Sing-a-Long Seasonal Affective Disorder Spectacular Music Pageant Variety Show Disaster". On December 11, 2012, Stevens released Chopped and Scrooged, a Christmas-themed hip-hop mixtape featuring music from Silver & Gold.
As a part of Joyful Noise's 2013 Flexi Disc Series, Stevens and Cat Martino, of Stranger Cat, recorded the single "Take the Time". Martino has contributed to many of Stevens' past projects, including The Age of Adz. On March 18, 2014, Stevens released the self-titled album, Sisyphus, with Son Lux and rapper Serengeti.
Carrie & Lowell (2015–2017)
On January 12, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced that Stevens would release a new album called Carrie & Lowell. Stevens shared the first single from the album, "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross", on February 16, 2015. Carrie & Lowell was released on March 31, 2015. The album garnered critical acclaim upon its release. Stereogum placed the album on its best albums of the decade list in 16th place and described it as "an elegant heartbreaker of an album", while Consequence of Sound ranked it the 43rd best album of the decade, calling it "a special brew that makes even the most intimate personal moment feel parabolic".
The album follows the nuances and trials of life with Stevens' mother, Carrie, who was diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic, was addicted to drugs, and abandoned him when he was a year old; it also includes Stevens' stepfather, Lowell Brams. Stevens also stated that the songwriting for the album was incited by his process of grieving and coming to terms with his and his mother's relationship following his mother's death due to stomach cancer in 2012. On January 26, 2015, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced a tour of North America, which began in April 2015, to coincide with the new album. Stevens also headlined the End of the Road Festival in the United Kingdom in September. On July 21, a second set of U.S. tour dates, which took place in October and November 2015, was announced.
After Stevens performed new compositions about the solar system alongside composers Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner in Amsterdam in April 2012, it was reported in March 2017 that the three and James McAlister would produce an album. The "80-minute concept album", titled Planetarium, was released in July 2017. On April 28, 2017, a live album and concert film, Carrie & Lowell Live was released, featuring new interpretations, re-workings and expansions of the songs from Carrie & Lowell. In addition to the live album, Stevens announced another Carrie & Lowell companion piece, The Greatest Gift, released on November 24. It includes four unreleased songs from the album sessions, as well as several remixes and a demo.
Call Me by Your Name and The Ascension (2017–2020)
In January 2017, it was announced that Stevens would contribute original songs written and recorded by himself for the coming-of-age romantic drama film Call Me by Your Name. The film was released on November 24, 2017, by Sony Pictures Classics. The soundtrack of the film features two new songs and a remix of an existing song by Stevens: "Visions of Gideon", which has been described as containing "lush orchestrations" and "staccato-heavy piano refrains", "Mystery of Love", which was featured in the film's trailer as well as the film itself, and an "ethereal piano arrangement" of The Age of Adz track "Futile Devices". In his review of the film, Consequence of Sound writer Dominick Suzanne-Mayer praised Stevens' work as a composer on the film, noting that he "has a perfect ear for the film's portrayal of a summer that's getting shorter by the day." In January 2018, "Mystery of Love" earned a nomination for the year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. Later in the year, the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The song was featured in the second season of the Netflix series Sex Education.
In December 2017, Stevens released two versions of "Tonya Harding", a song about the figure skater of the same name. The song's video shows a clip of the eponymous skater performing at the 1991 US Figure Skating Championships. Two days later, the single was offered for digital download and streaming, to be followed later by a cassette and vinyl release, in two versions, the one featured in the video (subtitled "in D major") and a piano-only arrangement ("in E♭ major"); in a short essay, Stevens revealed his intention to write a song about Harding since 1991. According to Stevens, "I've been trying to write a Tonya Harding song since I first saw her skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1991. She's a complicated subject for a song partly because the hard facts of her life are so strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American." Stevens later revealed that the song was offered to the producers to the biographical film I, Tonya, which was released in the same period, but that they decided not to include it in the film.
In October 2018, Stevens performed and recorded with pop music artist Angelo De Augustine a collaborative duo of the latter's "Time" single. On May 29, 2019, Stevens released two new songs, respectively entitled "Love Yourself" and "With My Whole Heart", which were released in celebration of Pride Month. Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork called "With My Whole Heart" "five minutes of unabashed and (relatively) unadorned inspirational soft rock" and "Love Yourself" "similarly glowing". Pride-themed T-shirts designed by Stevens also debuted alongside the singles. He later stated that a portion of the song and shirts' proceeds would go to the Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, two organizations which aim to help LGBT youth. In October 2019, Stevens released an album entitled The Decalogue with pianist Timo Andres. It is based on a ballet of the same name by Justin Peck, composed by Stevens.
On March 24, 2020, Stevens released a collaborative album with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, titled Aporia. In June, Stevens announced his eighth studio album, titled The Ascension, along with the album's lead single "America", which was released on July 3. The album's second single, "Video Game", was released on August 13, and the third single, "Sugar", was released on September 15. The Ascension was released in full on September 25.
Recent works (2021–present)
On May 6, 2021, Stevens released a five-volume album of meditation music, called Convocations. On July 7, 2021, Stevens announced the release of a collaborative album, called A Beginner's Mind, that he recorded with fellow folk singer-songwriter Angelo De Augustine. On the same day, they unveiled the cover and the first two singles, "Reach Out" and "Olympus". A Beginner's Mind is a concept album, each track being inspired by a different film from either the 20th or 21st century.
Artistry
Musical style
Stevens' sound has been most generally associated with genres such as indie folk, alternative rock, indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, chamber pop, folk pop, avant-garde folk, lo-fi folk, and electronica. A multi-instrumentalist, Stevens is known for his frequent use of the banjo, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, woodwinds, and several other instruments on his records, layered through the use of multitrack recording.
Themes
Stevens' work is known to explore themes of love, religion, outer space, and grief.
Despite many of his songs having spiritual allusions, Stevens does not identify as a contemporary Christian music artist or frequently discuss religion with the press. He told The Village Voice: "I don't think music media is the real forum for theological discussions. I think I've said things and sung about things that probably weren't appropriate for this kind of form. And I just feel like it's not my work or my place to be making claims and statements because I often think it's misunderstood."
During a 2004 interview with Adrian Pannett for Comes with a Smile magazine, when asked how important faith was to his music, he said "I don't like talking about that stuff in the public forum because, I think, certain themes and convictions are meant for personal conversation." In a 2006 interview, he said "It's not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance (giving a speech or tying my shoes), I am living and moving and being."
Personal life
Stevens has resided in Upstate New York near the Catskill Mountains since 2019. Before this, he lived in New York City for 20 years. He identifies as a Christian. Stevens also stated in 2005 that he attended an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church.
While in school, Stevens studied the oboe and English horn, which he plays on his albums. Stevens did not learn to play the guitar until his time at Hope College.
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"|Academy Awards
| 2018
|rowspan="5"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|AMFT Awards
| 2017
| Best Song Written For Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Awards Circuit Community Awards
| 2017
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics Choice Awards
| 2018
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|David di Donatello Awards
| 2019
| Best Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Dorian Awards
| 2019
| 2018 Oscar's Performance
| TV Musical Performance of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Georgia Film Critics Association
| 2018
|rowspan="2"|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="4" scope="row"|Gold Derby Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| rowspan="2"|Original Song
|
| rowspan="4"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|"Visions of Gideon"
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2020
| rowspan="2"|Original Song of the Decade
|
|-
|rowspan="4"|"Mystery of Love"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Grammy Awards
| 2019
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
| 2018
| Best Song/Recording Created for a Film
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hawaii Film Critics Society
| 2018
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Houston Film Critics Society Awards
| 2018
|"Visions of Gideon"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|International Cinephile Society Awards
| 2018
|' Call Me By Your Name
| Best Original Score
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|International Online Cinema Awards
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! scope="row"|New Mexico Film Critics
| 2017
|"Mystery of Love"
| Best Original Song
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"|Online Film & Television Association
| rowspan="2"|2018
| "Mystery of Love"
| rowspan="2"|Best Music, Original Song
|
| rowspan="2"|
|-
| "Vision of Gideon"
|
|-
! rowspan="7" scope="row"|PLUG Independent Music Awards
| rowspan="6"|2006
| rowspan="3"|" Illinois"
| Album of the Year
|
| rowspan="7"|
|-
| Album/Art Packaging of the Year
|
|-
|Indie Rock Album of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Himself
|Artist of the Year
|
|-
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
|"Chicago"
|Song of the Year
|
|-
|2007
|Himself
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
! scope="row"|Shortlist Music Prize
| 2005
| " Illinois"
|
|
|
|-
Discography
Studio albums
A Sun Came (1999)
Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001)
Michigan (2003)
Seven Swans (2004)
Illinois (2005)
The Age of Adz (2010)
Carrie & Lowell (2015)
The Ascension (2020)
Convocations (2021) (five-volume collection)
Collaborative albums
Planetarium (2017), with Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and James McAlister
The Decalogue (2019), with Timo Andres
Aporia (2020), with Lowell Brams
A Beginner's Mind (2021), with Angelo De Augustine
References
External links
1975 births
21st-century American singers
21st-century multi-instrumentalists
American banjoists
American electronic musicians
American experimental musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk rock musicians
American folk singers
American people of Greek descent
American indie pop musicians
American indie rock musicians
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American oboists
American people of Lithuanian descent
American rock guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Asthmatic Kitty artists
Baroque pop musicians
Christians from Michigan
Cor anglais players
Folk musicians from Michigan
Guitarists from Michigan
Record producers from Michigan
Hope College alumni
Indie folk musicians
Living people
Male oboists
Musicians from Detroit
People from Holland, Michigan
People from Kensington, Brooklyn
Rock oboists
Rough Trade Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Michigan
Sisyphus (hip hop group) members
Waldorf school alumni
Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize
People from Petoskey, Michigan
| false |
[
"Iivari (Ivar) Rötkö, born 26 January 1893, died 1957, was a Finnish long-distance runner. He was the holder of the 25,000 meter run world record and the 1926 best year performance in marathon.\n\nCareer \nRötkö won the 25,000-metre race at the 1925 Workers' Summer Olympiad in Frankfurt am Main. In September 1926 he ran the best marathon performance of the season, 2:34:25. Rötkö was also ranked fourth in the 10,000-metre run, preceded by the Finns Paavo Nurmi and Eino Rastas and the Chilean Manuel Plaza. In 1928, Rötkö set the world record 1:25:14 in 25,000 metres. He was one of the favourites to win the marathon at the 1928 Summer Spartakiad in Moscow, but the Finnish authorities denied his passport application.\n\nThree years later Rötkö defected from the left-wing Finnish Workers' Sports Federation (TUL) to the bourgeois Finnish National Sports Federation (SVUL) in order to race the marathon at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. At the time, the sports in Finland was split in two, the TUL and SVUL athletes did not compete with each other and the Finnish Olympic Team was composed of SVUL athletes only. Rötkö failed to enter the Olympics as he completed fifth in the qualifications and soon decided to end his career at the age of 39.\n\nReferences \n\n1893 births\n1957 deaths\nFinnish male long-distance runners\nFinnish male marathon runners",
"\"Run\" is a song by British musical duo Lighthouse Family, released as the second single from their third studio album, Whatever Gets You Through the Day (2001). The song was produced by Kevin Bacon and Jonathan Quarmby. It was released on 25 February 2002 and reached the top 30 in the United Kingdom as well as number two in the Czech Republic.\n\nChart performance\nAfter the release of \"Run\" in the United Kingdom, it reached number 30 on the UK Singles Chart and stayed in the charts for three weeks. In Switzerland and Austria, \"Run\" reached numbers 71 and 75, respectively. In the Czech Republic, the song peaked at number two.\n\nTrack listings\n UK CD1\n \"Run\" (radio edit) — 3:40\n \"Run\" (Ernest Saint Laurent Mix) — 6:25\n \"Run\" (Agent Sumo Mix) — 9:20\n \"Run\" (video)\n\n UK CD2\n \"Run\" (radio edit) — 3:40\n \"(I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be) Free/One\" (Mutiny Vocal Mix) — 7:10\n \"(I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be) Free/One\" (Brother Brown Main Mix) — 8:06\n\n UK cassette single and European CD single\n \"Run\" (radio edit) — 3:40\n \"Run\" (D'Influence vocal mix) — 4:55\n\n Australian CD single\n \"Run\" (radio edit) — 3:40\n \"Run\" (D'Influence vocal mix) — 4:55\n \"Wish\" (acoustic version) — 5:09\n \"Run\" (CD ROM video)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2002 singles\nLighthouse Family songs\nSong recordings produced by Jonathan Quarmby\nSong recordings produced by Kevin Bacon (producer)\nSongs written by Paul Tucker (musician)"
] |
[
"Faith No More",
"Angel Dust (1992-1994)"
] |
C_502dac1d421944dfaf5a09b716a19c4b_0
|
what is angel dust?
| 1 |
what is angel dust?
|
Faith No More
|
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on their next album, Angel Dust. One critic writes that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another writes that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers (...) reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions." Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust, though not as successful as The Real Thing in the US, sold 665,000 copies there, and managed to outsell The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum), Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the UK. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies. After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, long-time guitarist Jim Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, describing it as "gay disco". According to Roddy Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. However, Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly offered to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined to join. The position was filled by Mike Patton's bandmate from Mr. Bungle, Trey Spruance, who left soon after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime and just before the band was to begin their world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before settling on the current name in July 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest-remaining members of the band, having been involved since its inception. The band underwent several early lineup changes, and some major changes later. The current lineup of Faith No More consists of Gould, Bordin, Bottum, lead guitarist Jon Hudson, and vocalist/lyricist Mike Patton.
After releasing six studio albums, including best-selling records The Real Thing (1989) and Angel Dust (1992), Faith No More officially announced its breakup on April 20, 1998. The band has since reunited, conducting The Second Coming Tour between 2009 and 2010, and releasing its seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. After the touring cycle of Sol Invictus, Faith No More went on hiatus once again. In November 2019, the band announced that it would reunite to embark on a 2020 UK and European tour, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was postponed. Touring was due to recommence with a brief US tour in September 2021, followed by the previously postponed UK and Europe dates in June 2022, but all tour dates were cancelled with Patton citing mental health reasons.
History
Early days (1979–1984)
The genesis of Faith No More was the group Sharp Young Men, formed in 1979 by vocalist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould joined afterwards. Morris called the name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time". Later, he proposed the name Faith In No Man, but eventually the band settled on Bordin's suggestion, Faith No Man (stylized as Faith. No Man). The band recorded "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", released in 1983. The songs were recorded in Matt Wallace's parents' garage, where Wallace had set up and been running a recording studio while the band was still recording under the name Sharp Young Men, with Morris, Gould, Bordin and Worthington. Worthington left shortly thereafter. The band's name was changed to Faith No Man for the release of the single, which featured two of the three songs recorded in Wallace's garage, and Roddy Bottum replaced Worthington. Bottum, Gould and Bordin quit the band shortly after and formed Faith No More. They chose the name in mid-1983 to accentuate the fact that "The Man" (Morris) was "No More". The band played with several vocalists and guitarists, including a brief stint with Courtney Love, until it settled on vocalist Chuck Mosley in 1983 and, later, guitarist Jim Martin. Their first release under the Faith No More name was a self-titled cassette in 1983, which featured a live performance from that year on Side A, and a 20 minute instrumental track on Side B.
We Care a Lot and Introduce Yourself (1985–1988)
After the name change, the band initially started recording We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz, who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records, under which the band, after getting the necessary financial support, finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.
In late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently been sold to the Warner Music Group subsidiary London Records, ensuring a widespread release for the band's following albums. Introduce Yourself was released in April 1987, and a revamped version of their debut album's title track "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV. Mosley's behaviour had started to become increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Incidents include him allegedly punching Billy Gould on stage, the release party for the album Introduce Yourself—during which he fell asleep on stage—and one of Mosley's roadies getting into a fistfight with Martin during the European tour. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe. Gould reflected, "There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I just said: 'I'm done—I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios."
Mike Patton joins and The Real Thing (1989–1991)
Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard a demo of Mr. Bungle. According to Patton, he first met the band during a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his hometown of Eureka, California. Two weeks after joining Faith No More, he had written all the lyrics for the songs that made up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing, which was released in June 1989.
"Epic" was released in January 1990 and was a top 10 hit. The music video received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, and angered animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water at the end of the video. That same year, Faith No More performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1). "From Out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" were released as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was produced for non-vinyl releases. In 1990, the band went on an extensive U.S. tour, sending The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the U.S., and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, U.K., and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4 million worldwide.
In February 1991, Faith No More released its only official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy. The album includes two previously unreleased studio tracks, "The Grade" and "The Cowboy Song". The same year, the band contributed the song "The Perfect Crime" to the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" as the head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". Patton's original band Mr. Bungle went on to sign with Slash and Reprise Records's parent label Warner Bros. Records in 1991, after the worldwide success of The Real Thing.
Angel Dust (1992–1994)
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on its next album, Angel Dust, released in June 1992. One critic wrote that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers [...] reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions."
Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores' "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust charted one spot higher on the Billboard 200 than The Real Thing, but was not as commercially successful in the U.S., selling 665,000 copies there. It outsold The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum) and Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the U.K. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies.
After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, longtime guitarist Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, calling it "gay disco". According to Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly invited to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined. The position was filled by Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance, who left after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, just before the band was to begin its world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech.
King for a Day..., Album of the Year and break-up (1995–1998)
Faith No More's fifth studio album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, was released in March 1995, and varies greatly from song to song in style; punk, country, jazz, bossa nova, thrash metal, gospel music, along with other signature FNM elements, are woven together throughout the album. Singles included "Digging the Grave", "Evidence", and "Ricochet". The album featured Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance on guitar. The record went Gold in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany, which gave the album a respectable sales figure of around 1.5 million copies; this was significantly lower than sales of their previous albums. A 7 x 7-inch box set of singles was released, which included the B-sides and some interviews between the songs.
Album of the Year was released in June 1997 and featured yet another new guitarist, Jon Hudson, who was a former roommate of Billy Gould. The album debuted much higher than expected in some countries (for example, in Germany, the album debuted at No. 2 and stayed in the chart for 5 months). In Australia, Album of the Year went to No. 1 and was certified Platinum. The album charted in many countries in Europe. To date, Album of the Year has sold around 2 million copies worldwide. The singles "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Cup of Sorrow" had minimal success (notably, the music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow", which featured actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo). "Stripsearch" was released as a single in various countries (excluding the U.S. and U.K.). The album received largely negative reviews from U.S.-based critics at the time. Rolling Stone magazine wrote in their original review "[They] are floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant", while Pitchfork Media stated "Album Of The Year leaves one feeling like waking up and finding last night's used condom – sure, the ride was fun while it lasted, but what remains is just plain icky. And you definitely don't want it in your CD player." Following the album's release, Faith No More toured with Limp Bizkit in 1997, who were frequently booed by Faith No More's fans.
In early 1998, rumors of Faith No More's imminent demise began. Starting with a rumor posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favor of side projects, this rumor, although denied at the time, proved to be at least partly true. Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon, Portugal on April 7, 1998. The band cancelled their planned support tour for Aerosmith and on April 20, Billy Gould released a statement by email and fax, saying "[T]he decision among the members is mutual" and "the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered." The band "thank[ed] all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history."
Reformation (2009–2012)
Rumours that Faith No More would reunite for shows in the U.K. in the summer of 2009 were circulating in late November 2008, but were originally dismissed by bassist Billy Gould. He explained: "If anything like this were to happen, it would have to come from the band, and I haven't spoken with any of them in over a year. So as far as I know, there isn't anything to talk about, and I'm pretty sure that if you were to contact Patton, he would tell you the same thing."
However, on February 24, 2009, after months of speculation and rumors, Faith No More announced they would be reforming with a line-up identical to the Album of the Year era, embarking on a reunion tour called The Second Coming Tour. To coincide with the band's reunion tour, Rhino released the sixth Faith No More compilation, The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection, a double album that includes their hit singles and b sides & rarities, in the U.K. on June 8. Faith No More then played in major European festivals including Download Festival in the U.K. in June, Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany, Greenfield Festival in Switzerland, Hove Festival in Norway and Roskilde Festival in Denmark, among other dates. The tour continued into 2010 with appearances at the Soundwave Festival in Australian cities throughout February and March. During their tour, the band added covers to their repertoire including "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga and "Switch" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
After an eleven-month hiatus, Faith No More played four shows in South America in November 2011. On the first date (November 8, 2011), the band played a "mystery song," which led to speculation of new material. They played Sonisphere France on July 7, 2012. Following several more shows in Europe during 2012, Faith No More became temporarily inactive again. Mike Patton spent 2013 touring with his reformed rock supergroup Tomahawk, while the band's other members also pursued their own side projects. In July 2013, Billy Gould confirmed that the band's hiatus would not be permanent, saying "We will do something again only when all members are with the focus on that, and ready for the challenge. This is not the time... yet."
In a 2015 interview, Roddy Bottum said that the band originally intended to reform with guitarist Jim Martin for their reunion tour, but it did not happen.
Sol Invictus, hiatus and touring (2015–present)
On May 29, 2014, Faith No More posted a message (along with a photograph of Mike Patton) on their Twitter account, saying that "the reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative." On July 4, Faith No More played their first show in two years at Hyde Park in London, supporting Black Sabbath. At that show, Faith No More debuted two new songs "Motherfucker" and "Superhero" (also known by fans as "Leader of Men"). On August 20, the band posted "The Reunion Tour is over; in 2015 things are going to change." These tweets led to speculation that the band was working on new material. On August 30, Gould said that the band is "considering doing something new", and may begin work on a new studio album at some point in the not-too-distant future, explaining, "to do something creative would be a really good thing to do." On September 2, Bill Gould revealed to Rolling Stone that the band had begun work on a new album. Faith No More headlined the final edition of Australia's Soundwave in February and March 2015.
The band released their seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. The songs on the album were influenced by The Cramps, Link Wray and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Speaking to Revolver, Gould described the song "Cone of Shame" as "blues-based rock and roll". Describing the song "Matador", he said: "parts of it remind me of the first Siouxsie and the Banshees album. We used real pianos and that brings this organic quality to it to the music". The second single from the album, "Superhero", was shared by the band on March 1, 2015.
In August 2016, the band performed two concerts with former lead singer Chuck Mosley to celebrate the reissue of their debut album We Care a Lot. The band was billed as "Chuck Mosley & Friends" for the two shows and featured the lineup of Mosley, Mike Bordin, Billy Gould, Jon Hudson and Roddy Bottum.
Former Faith No More singer Chuck Mosley died on November 9, 2017, due to "the disease of addiction." He was 57 years old.
In February 2018, it was announced that a documentary film on the late former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley had begun production; titled Thanks. And Sorry: The Chuck Mosley Movie, the film is being directed and edited by Drew Fortier and produced by Douglas Esper.
On November 23, 2019, Faith No More updated its official website and social media accounts with an image of the band's eight-pointed star logo in front of a snow-covered mountain top, accompanied by a clock counting down to November 26, 2019; on the latter date, the band announced its first shows in five years set to take place in Europe in June 2020, including Sunstroke Festival in Ireland, Hellfest in France and Tons of Rock in Norway. Less than twenty-four hours later, the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain, scheduled for July 2020, was added to the list of the band's festival dates. They subsequently rescheduled most of its tour dates, including the Australian and European legs, to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band was scheduled to play two shows at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles with System of a Down, Helmet and Russian Circles, which were initially set to take place May 22–23, 2020, but were postponed twice due to the pandemic, and Faith No More was replaced by Korn. The band was scheduled to play additional shows in September 2021 but these were also cancelled with Mike Patton citing mental health reasons.
Musical style and influences
Faith No More's music is generally considered to be alternative metal, experimental rock, , alternative rock, and rap metal; however, as Faith No Man, their sound was described as post-punk. The band's first single from 1983, "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", was labelled as a "solid post-punk/pre-goth single." These elements endured during their tenure with Chucky Mosley, with AllMusic comparing their first album to early Public Image Ltd works, and Mosley's vocals drawing comparisons to Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy and H.R. of Bad Brains. By the mid-1980s, Billy Gould stated the band were in a "weird spot", as their eclectic sound didn't fit in with the burgeoning hardcore punk and alternative rock movements of the era. Upon Mike Patton's arrival in 1989, the band began to expand their sound range even further, merging disparate genres such as synth-pop, thrash metal, and carousel music on The Real Thing. Rolling Stone states that by 1997, the band were "too heavy for the post-grunge pop hits of The Verve and Third Eye Blind [and] too arty to work comfortably with the nu metal knuckle-draggers they spawned." Over the course of their career, they have experimented with heavy metal, funk, hip hop, progressive rock, alternative rock, hardcore punk, polka, country, easy listening, jazz, samba, ska, bossa nova, hard rock, pop, soul, trip hop, gospel, and lounge music.
Faith No More's lyrics have been described as "bizarrely humorous". When interviewed about his lyrics, Patton responded, "I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works more with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm, not because of the meaning."
In addition to the band's subsequently more apparent metal influences, like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, Bordin acknowledged many gothic rock and post-punk bands as early influences, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Public Image Ltd, and Theatre of Hate. Upon reforming, Faith No More returned to these influences on Sol Invictus.
Legacy
In a 2015 article by Artistdirect, the musicians Duff McKagan, Chino Moreno, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Max Cavalera and Jonathan Davis all praised the band for their significance and influence. Nirvana bassist, and co-founder, Krist Novoselic cited Faith No More as a band that "paved the way for Nirvana" in the late 1980s. Robert Plant, singer of Led Zeppelin, mentioned the then Chuck Mosley-led Faith No More as one of his current favorite bands in a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone. Plant and Faith No More subsequently toured together following The Real Things release. Scott Ian of Anthrax has also named Faith No More as one of his favorite bands.
Corey Taylor (frontman for both Slipknot and Stone Sour) told Loudwire in 2015 that if it wasn't for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today." While recovering from an attempted suicide at his grandmother's house, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
They were voted No. 52 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". The band is credited for inventing the alternative metal genre which began in the 1980s and that fuses metal with other genres, including alternative rock. Tim Grierson of About.com said the band "helped put alternative metal on the map." Faith No More has also been credited for influencing nu metal bands, such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Sevendust, primarily due to the popularity of "Epic", and other early material that featured rap and rock crossovers. Papa Roach vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, a self-confessed fan of the band, stated in a 2015 interview "They fused some of that hip-hop and rock together. They were one of the earliest bands to do that, and definitely pioneers to a whole genre. If you listen to Korn, if you listen to how the bass and the drums lock up, it's quite similar to how Faith No More was doing it in their early years." In a 2019 interview on the Australian channel Rage's Midnight Show, Tobias Forge, leader of the Swedish rock band Ghost, explained what the band meant to him by saying, "In the 90s there were a few bands that I liked a lot, and still like to this day, that are consecutively hard to niche. One band is Faith No More. Who knows what they play? No one knows really. It's a synth band? No. Is it a heavy metal band? No, not really. It's just a really, really good rock band."
Faith No More have been covered by prominent metal acts such as 36 Crazyfists, Apocalyptica, Atreyu, Between the Buried and Me, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Helloween, Ill Niño, Korn, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Redemption, Revocation, Sentenced, Slaves on Dope and Trail of Tears. In 2002, a tribute album titled Tribute of the Year (a reference to Faith No More's Album of the Year) was released by Underground Inc. It featured 30 Faith No More songs covered by mostly unknown independent hardcore punk, industrial and alternative metal acts.
The band and their 1989 single "Epic" have frequently been cited as an example of an '80s or '90s one-hit wonder. Flavorwire stated in 2014 "Although the band always had a loyal fan base and Patton remains an indie hero, they only cracked the Billboard Hot 100 once, with Epic." Others have noted that after "Epics success, the band still managed to remain highly popular in regions outside North America: including Australia, South America, Europe and the U.K. The band's original final record Album of the Year notably experienced high sales in countries such as Australia (where it went platinum), New Zealand and Germany, while being deemed a commercial failure in their native USA.
After the release of The Real Thing, a feud developed between Faith No More and fellow funk-influenced Californian group Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom they had previously played with on The Uplift Mofo Party Tour, while Chuck Mosley was still Faith No More's lead singer. Over the years, the feud has largely been fueled by the media, including TV personalities such as Greg Gutfeld. Despite this, various members of Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers appear to have remained on good terms since the initial controversy. Regarding the perceived conflict, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea stated in a mid-90s interview, "There was never any fight between us, that was a bunch of bullshit created by the media. I mean I think they're a good band. Maybe there was some things said between Anthony and the singer [Patton], but it all means nothing to me. Those guys in the band are nice people and there's no fight." At a 2014 show in Brooklyn, Red Hot Chili Peppers also notably covered a portion of the Chuck Mosley-era song "We Care a Lot".
Concert tours
1979–1984: Early shows
1985–1986: We Care a Lot Tour
1987–1988: Introduce Yourself Tour
1989–1991: The Real Thing Tour
1992–1993: Angel Dust Tour
1995: King for a Day Tour
1997–1998: Album of the Year Tour
2009–2012: The Second Coming Tour
2015: Soundwave Tour
2015: Sol Invictus Tour
2021-2022: Australian, New Zealand, European and US Tour
Band members
Current members
Mike Bordin – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Billy Gould – bass, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Roddy Bottum – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1983–1998; 2009–present)
Mike Patton – lead vocals (1988–1998; 2009–present)
Jon Hudson – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–1998; 2009–present)
Awards and nominations
Brit Awards
|-
| 1991 || Faith No More || International Group ||
Grammy Awards
|-
| 1990 || "The Real Thing" || Best Metal Performance ||
|-
| 1991 || "Epic" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
|-
| 1993 || "Angel Dust" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Album ||
Metal Storm Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Alternative Metal Album ||
MTV Video Music Awards
|-
| 1990 || "Epic" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Visual Effects in a Video ||
|-
| 1993 || "A Small Victory" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
Discography
Studio albums
We Care a Lot (1985)
Introduce Yourself (1987)
The Real Thing (1989)
Angel Dust (1992)
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime (1995)
Album of the Year (1997)
Sol Invictus (2015)
See also
List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area
List of alternative metal artists
List of funk metal and funk rock bands
Notes
1. The song was recorded in 1988 and first appeared on 1989's The Real Thing, although it gained popularity after being released as a single in 1990.
References
Bibliography
.
Prato, Greg (2013). The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion. Createspace. .
Harte, Adrian (2018). Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More. Jawbone Press. .
External links
Faith No More in Concert
American alternative metal musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
American funk metal musical groups
American experimental rock groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups from San Francisco
Slash Records artists
Ipecac Recordings artists
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Mission District, San Francisco
Musical quintets
Alternative rock groups from California
| false |
[
"Steve Forde is the first solo album by Australian Country music star Steve Forde which is both a greatest hits CD and has brand new content. The CD produced two singles both of which reached the number one position on the CMC request charts.\n\nTrack listing\n\nStandard edition\n\nSummer's Little Angel\nMetropolis\nBeer And Women\nDust\nDrinking Things Over\nThe Letter\nAnother Man\nRodeo Freak\nCaptain Good Times\nCrazy Love\nThat's What I'm Talking About\nLife's Getting In The Way Of Living\n\nLimited edition CD/DVD\n\nDisc one\nSummer's Little Angel\nMetropolis\nBeer And Women\nDust\nDrinking Things Over\nThe Letter\nAnother Man\nRodeo Freak\nCaptain Good Times\nCrazy Love\nThat's What I'm Talking About\nLife's Getting In The Way Of Living\n\nDisc two\nThe second disc is a DVD which contains film clips of the following songs:\nAussie Philosophy\nRodeo Freak\nThe Letter\nAnother Man\nThat Too (Live At The Deni Ute Muster)\nYou Shook Me All Night Long (Live At The Deni Ute Muster)\n\nSingles\nMetropolis\nSummer's Little Angel\n\nReferences\n\n2007 albums\nSteve Forde albums\nAlbums produced by Richard Landis",
"Angel dust may refer to:\n A common name for the drug phencyclidine (PCP)\n Angel dusting, a misleading marketing practice\n\nComics and videos\n Angel Dust (comics), a fictional mutant\n Angel Dust, a manga by Kouta Hirano\n Angel/Dust, a 2000 manga by Aoi Nanase\n Angel Dust (character), a character in the animated web series Hazbin Hotel\n\nMusic\n Angel Dust (Faith No More album)\n Angel Dust (German band), a German heavy metal band\n Angel Dust (American band), an American rock supergroup\n Angeldust (band), an American industrial music project\n Angel Dust (Blutengel album)\n Angel Dust (Indo G album), 1998\n Angel Dust (Z-Ro album), 2012\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by Tim Scott\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson from the 1978 album Secrets\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by Venom from the 1981 album Welcome to Hell\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by Loudness on the 1982 album Devil Soldier\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by New Order on the 1986 album Brotherhood\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by Mac Miller from the 2014 mixtape Faces\n \"AngelDust\", a song by Pink Cig x Emo Fruits released in 2018, first appearing on SoundCloud\n \"Angel Dust\", a song by Azahriah released in 2021\n\nSee also\n Dust of Angels, a 1992 film"
] |
[
"Faith No More",
"Angel Dust (1992-1994)",
"what is angel dust?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_502dac1d421944dfaf5a09b716a19c4b_0
|
what type of music does the band make?
| 2 |
what type of music does the band Faith No More, Angel Dust make?
|
Faith No More
|
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on their next album, Angel Dust. One critic writes that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another writes that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers (...) reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions." Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust, though not as successful as The Real Thing in the US, sold 665,000 copies there, and managed to outsell The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum), Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the UK. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies. After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, long-time guitarist Jim Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, describing it as "gay disco". According to Roddy Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. However, Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly offered to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined to join. The position was filled by Mike Patton's bandmate from Mr. Bungle, Trey Spruance, who left soon after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime and just before the band was to begin their world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech. CANNOTANSWER
|
gay disco
|
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before settling on the current name in July 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest-remaining members of the band, having been involved since its inception. The band underwent several early lineup changes, and some major changes later. The current lineup of Faith No More consists of Gould, Bordin, Bottum, lead guitarist Jon Hudson, and vocalist/lyricist Mike Patton.
After releasing six studio albums, including best-selling records The Real Thing (1989) and Angel Dust (1992), Faith No More officially announced its breakup on April 20, 1998. The band has since reunited, conducting The Second Coming Tour between 2009 and 2010, and releasing its seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. After the touring cycle of Sol Invictus, Faith No More went on hiatus once again. In November 2019, the band announced that it would reunite to embark on a 2020 UK and European tour, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was postponed. Touring was due to recommence with a brief US tour in September 2021, followed by the previously postponed UK and Europe dates in June 2022, but all tour dates were cancelled with Patton citing mental health reasons.
History
Early days (1979–1984)
The genesis of Faith No More was the group Sharp Young Men, formed in 1979 by vocalist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould joined afterwards. Morris called the name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time". Later, he proposed the name Faith In No Man, but eventually the band settled on Bordin's suggestion, Faith No Man (stylized as Faith. No Man). The band recorded "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", released in 1983. The songs were recorded in Matt Wallace's parents' garage, where Wallace had set up and been running a recording studio while the band was still recording under the name Sharp Young Men, with Morris, Gould, Bordin and Worthington. Worthington left shortly thereafter. The band's name was changed to Faith No Man for the release of the single, which featured two of the three songs recorded in Wallace's garage, and Roddy Bottum replaced Worthington. Bottum, Gould and Bordin quit the band shortly after and formed Faith No More. They chose the name in mid-1983 to accentuate the fact that "The Man" (Morris) was "No More". The band played with several vocalists and guitarists, including a brief stint with Courtney Love, until it settled on vocalist Chuck Mosley in 1983 and, later, guitarist Jim Martin. Their first release under the Faith No More name was a self-titled cassette in 1983, which featured a live performance from that year on Side A, and a 20 minute instrumental track on Side B.
We Care a Lot and Introduce Yourself (1985–1988)
After the name change, the band initially started recording We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz, who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records, under which the band, after getting the necessary financial support, finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.
In late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently been sold to the Warner Music Group subsidiary London Records, ensuring a widespread release for the band's following albums. Introduce Yourself was released in April 1987, and a revamped version of their debut album's title track "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV. Mosley's behaviour had started to become increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Incidents include him allegedly punching Billy Gould on stage, the release party for the album Introduce Yourself—during which he fell asleep on stage—and one of Mosley's roadies getting into a fistfight with Martin during the European tour. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe. Gould reflected, "There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I just said: 'I'm done—I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios."
Mike Patton joins and The Real Thing (1989–1991)
Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard a demo of Mr. Bungle. According to Patton, he first met the band during a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his hometown of Eureka, California. Two weeks after joining Faith No More, he had written all the lyrics for the songs that made up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing, which was released in June 1989.
"Epic" was released in January 1990 and was a top 10 hit. The music video received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, and angered animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water at the end of the video. That same year, Faith No More performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1). "From Out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" were released as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was produced for non-vinyl releases. In 1990, the band went on an extensive U.S. tour, sending The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the U.S., and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, U.K., and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4 million worldwide.
In February 1991, Faith No More released its only official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy. The album includes two previously unreleased studio tracks, "The Grade" and "The Cowboy Song". The same year, the band contributed the song "The Perfect Crime" to the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" as the head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". Patton's original band Mr. Bungle went on to sign with Slash and Reprise Records's parent label Warner Bros. Records in 1991, after the worldwide success of The Real Thing.
Angel Dust (1992–1994)
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on its next album, Angel Dust, released in June 1992. One critic wrote that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers [...] reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions."
Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores' "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust charted one spot higher on the Billboard 200 than The Real Thing, but was not as commercially successful in the U.S., selling 665,000 copies there. It outsold The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum) and Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the U.K. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies.
After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, longtime guitarist Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, calling it "gay disco". According to Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly invited to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined. The position was filled by Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance, who left after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, just before the band was to begin its world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech.
King for a Day..., Album of the Year and break-up (1995–1998)
Faith No More's fifth studio album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, was released in March 1995, and varies greatly from song to song in style; punk, country, jazz, bossa nova, thrash metal, gospel music, along with other signature FNM elements, are woven together throughout the album. Singles included "Digging the Grave", "Evidence", and "Ricochet". The album featured Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance on guitar. The record went Gold in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany, which gave the album a respectable sales figure of around 1.5 million copies; this was significantly lower than sales of their previous albums. A 7 x 7-inch box set of singles was released, which included the B-sides and some interviews between the songs.
Album of the Year was released in June 1997 and featured yet another new guitarist, Jon Hudson, who was a former roommate of Billy Gould. The album debuted much higher than expected in some countries (for example, in Germany, the album debuted at No. 2 and stayed in the chart for 5 months). In Australia, Album of the Year went to No. 1 and was certified Platinum. The album charted in many countries in Europe. To date, Album of the Year has sold around 2 million copies worldwide. The singles "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Cup of Sorrow" had minimal success (notably, the music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow", which featured actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo). "Stripsearch" was released as a single in various countries (excluding the U.S. and U.K.). The album received largely negative reviews from U.S.-based critics at the time. Rolling Stone magazine wrote in their original review "[They] are floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant", while Pitchfork Media stated "Album Of The Year leaves one feeling like waking up and finding last night's used condom – sure, the ride was fun while it lasted, but what remains is just plain icky. And you definitely don't want it in your CD player." Following the album's release, Faith No More toured with Limp Bizkit in 1997, who were frequently booed by Faith No More's fans.
In early 1998, rumors of Faith No More's imminent demise began. Starting with a rumor posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favor of side projects, this rumor, although denied at the time, proved to be at least partly true. Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon, Portugal on April 7, 1998. The band cancelled their planned support tour for Aerosmith and on April 20, Billy Gould released a statement by email and fax, saying "[T]he decision among the members is mutual" and "the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered." The band "thank[ed] all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history."
Reformation (2009–2012)
Rumours that Faith No More would reunite for shows in the U.K. in the summer of 2009 were circulating in late November 2008, but were originally dismissed by bassist Billy Gould. He explained: "If anything like this were to happen, it would have to come from the band, and I haven't spoken with any of them in over a year. So as far as I know, there isn't anything to talk about, and I'm pretty sure that if you were to contact Patton, he would tell you the same thing."
However, on February 24, 2009, after months of speculation and rumors, Faith No More announced they would be reforming with a line-up identical to the Album of the Year era, embarking on a reunion tour called The Second Coming Tour. To coincide with the band's reunion tour, Rhino released the sixth Faith No More compilation, The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection, a double album that includes their hit singles and b sides & rarities, in the U.K. on June 8. Faith No More then played in major European festivals including Download Festival in the U.K. in June, Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany, Greenfield Festival in Switzerland, Hove Festival in Norway and Roskilde Festival in Denmark, among other dates. The tour continued into 2010 with appearances at the Soundwave Festival in Australian cities throughout February and March. During their tour, the band added covers to their repertoire including "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga and "Switch" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
After an eleven-month hiatus, Faith No More played four shows in South America in November 2011. On the first date (November 8, 2011), the band played a "mystery song," which led to speculation of new material. They played Sonisphere France on July 7, 2012. Following several more shows in Europe during 2012, Faith No More became temporarily inactive again. Mike Patton spent 2013 touring with his reformed rock supergroup Tomahawk, while the band's other members also pursued their own side projects. In July 2013, Billy Gould confirmed that the band's hiatus would not be permanent, saying "We will do something again only when all members are with the focus on that, and ready for the challenge. This is not the time... yet."
In a 2015 interview, Roddy Bottum said that the band originally intended to reform with guitarist Jim Martin for their reunion tour, but it did not happen.
Sol Invictus, hiatus and touring (2015–present)
On May 29, 2014, Faith No More posted a message (along with a photograph of Mike Patton) on their Twitter account, saying that "the reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative." On July 4, Faith No More played their first show in two years at Hyde Park in London, supporting Black Sabbath. At that show, Faith No More debuted two new songs "Motherfucker" and "Superhero" (also known by fans as "Leader of Men"). On August 20, the band posted "The Reunion Tour is over; in 2015 things are going to change." These tweets led to speculation that the band was working on new material. On August 30, Gould said that the band is "considering doing something new", and may begin work on a new studio album at some point in the not-too-distant future, explaining, "to do something creative would be a really good thing to do." On September 2, Bill Gould revealed to Rolling Stone that the band had begun work on a new album. Faith No More headlined the final edition of Australia's Soundwave in February and March 2015.
The band released their seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. The songs on the album were influenced by The Cramps, Link Wray and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Speaking to Revolver, Gould described the song "Cone of Shame" as "blues-based rock and roll". Describing the song "Matador", he said: "parts of it remind me of the first Siouxsie and the Banshees album. We used real pianos and that brings this organic quality to it to the music". The second single from the album, "Superhero", was shared by the band on March 1, 2015.
In August 2016, the band performed two concerts with former lead singer Chuck Mosley to celebrate the reissue of their debut album We Care a Lot. The band was billed as "Chuck Mosley & Friends" for the two shows and featured the lineup of Mosley, Mike Bordin, Billy Gould, Jon Hudson and Roddy Bottum.
Former Faith No More singer Chuck Mosley died on November 9, 2017, due to "the disease of addiction." He was 57 years old.
In February 2018, it was announced that a documentary film on the late former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley had begun production; titled Thanks. And Sorry: The Chuck Mosley Movie, the film is being directed and edited by Drew Fortier and produced by Douglas Esper.
On November 23, 2019, Faith No More updated its official website and social media accounts with an image of the band's eight-pointed star logo in front of a snow-covered mountain top, accompanied by a clock counting down to November 26, 2019; on the latter date, the band announced its first shows in five years set to take place in Europe in June 2020, including Sunstroke Festival in Ireland, Hellfest in France and Tons of Rock in Norway. Less than twenty-four hours later, the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain, scheduled for July 2020, was added to the list of the band's festival dates. They subsequently rescheduled most of its tour dates, including the Australian and European legs, to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band was scheduled to play two shows at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles with System of a Down, Helmet and Russian Circles, which were initially set to take place May 22–23, 2020, but were postponed twice due to the pandemic, and Faith No More was replaced by Korn. The band was scheduled to play additional shows in September 2021 but these were also cancelled with Mike Patton citing mental health reasons.
Musical style and influences
Faith No More's music is generally considered to be alternative metal, experimental rock, , alternative rock, and rap metal; however, as Faith No Man, their sound was described as post-punk. The band's first single from 1983, "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", was labelled as a "solid post-punk/pre-goth single." These elements endured during their tenure with Chucky Mosley, with AllMusic comparing their first album to early Public Image Ltd works, and Mosley's vocals drawing comparisons to Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy and H.R. of Bad Brains. By the mid-1980s, Billy Gould stated the band were in a "weird spot", as their eclectic sound didn't fit in with the burgeoning hardcore punk and alternative rock movements of the era. Upon Mike Patton's arrival in 1989, the band began to expand their sound range even further, merging disparate genres such as synth-pop, thrash metal, and carousel music on The Real Thing. Rolling Stone states that by 1997, the band were "too heavy for the post-grunge pop hits of The Verve and Third Eye Blind [and] too arty to work comfortably with the nu metal knuckle-draggers they spawned." Over the course of their career, they have experimented with heavy metal, funk, hip hop, progressive rock, alternative rock, hardcore punk, polka, country, easy listening, jazz, samba, ska, bossa nova, hard rock, pop, soul, trip hop, gospel, and lounge music.
Faith No More's lyrics have been described as "bizarrely humorous". When interviewed about his lyrics, Patton responded, "I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works more with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm, not because of the meaning."
In addition to the band's subsequently more apparent metal influences, like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, Bordin acknowledged many gothic rock and post-punk bands as early influences, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Public Image Ltd, and Theatre of Hate. Upon reforming, Faith No More returned to these influences on Sol Invictus.
Legacy
In a 2015 article by Artistdirect, the musicians Duff McKagan, Chino Moreno, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Max Cavalera and Jonathan Davis all praised the band for their significance and influence. Nirvana bassist, and co-founder, Krist Novoselic cited Faith No More as a band that "paved the way for Nirvana" in the late 1980s. Robert Plant, singer of Led Zeppelin, mentioned the then Chuck Mosley-led Faith No More as one of his current favorite bands in a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone. Plant and Faith No More subsequently toured together following The Real Things release. Scott Ian of Anthrax has also named Faith No More as one of his favorite bands.
Corey Taylor (frontman for both Slipknot and Stone Sour) told Loudwire in 2015 that if it wasn't for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today." While recovering from an attempted suicide at his grandmother's house, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
They were voted No. 52 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". The band is credited for inventing the alternative metal genre which began in the 1980s and that fuses metal with other genres, including alternative rock. Tim Grierson of About.com said the band "helped put alternative metal on the map." Faith No More has also been credited for influencing nu metal bands, such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Sevendust, primarily due to the popularity of "Epic", and other early material that featured rap and rock crossovers. Papa Roach vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, a self-confessed fan of the band, stated in a 2015 interview "They fused some of that hip-hop and rock together. They were one of the earliest bands to do that, and definitely pioneers to a whole genre. If you listen to Korn, if you listen to how the bass and the drums lock up, it's quite similar to how Faith No More was doing it in their early years." In a 2019 interview on the Australian channel Rage's Midnight Show, Tobias Forge, leader of the Swedish rock band Ghost, explained what the band meant to him by saying, "In the 90s there were a few bands that I liked a lot, and still like to this day, that are consecutively hard to niche. One band is Faith No More. Who knows what they play? No one knows really. It's a synth band? No. Is it a heavy metal band? No, not really. It's just a really, really good rock band."
Faith No More have been covered by prominent metal acts such as 36 Crazyfists, Apocalyptica, Atreyu, Between the Buried and Me, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Helloween, Ill Niño, Korn, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Redemption, Revocation, Sentenced, Slaves on Dope and Trail of Tears. In 2002, a tribute album titled Tribute of the Year (a reference to Faith No More's Album of the Year) was released by Underground Inc. It featured 30 Faith No More songs covered by mostly unknown independent hardcore punk, industrial and alternative metal acts.
The band and their 1989 single "Epic" have frequently been cited as an example of an '80s or '90s one-hit wonder. Flavorwire stated in 2014 "Although the band always had a loyal fan base and Patton remains an indie hero, they only cracked the Billboard Hot 100 once, with Epic." Others have noted that after "Epics success, the band still managed to remain highly popular in regions outside North America: including Australia, South America, Europe and the U.K. The band's original final record Album of the Year notably experienced high sales in countries such as Australia (where it went platinum), New Zealand and Germany, while being deemed a commercial failure in their native USA.
After the release of The Real Thing, a feud developed between Faith No More and fellow funk-influenced Californian group Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom they had previously played with on The Uplift Mofo Party Tour, while Chuck Mosley was still Faith No More's lead singer. Over the years, the feud has largely been fueled by the media, including TV personalities such as Greg Gutfeld. Despite this, various members of Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers appear to have remained on good terms since the initial controversy. Regarding the perceived conflict, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea stated in a mid-90s interview, "There was never any fight between us, that was a bunch of bullshit created by the media. I mean I think they're a good band. Maybe there was some things said between Anthony and the singer [Patton], but it all means nothing to me. Those guys in the band are nice people and there's no fight." At a 2014 show in Brooklyn, Red Hot Chili Peppers also notably covered a portion of the Chuck Mosley-era song "We Care a Lot".
Concert tours
1979–1984: Early shows
1985–1986: We Care a Lot Tour
1987–1988: Introduce Yourself Tour
1989–1991: The Real Thing Tour
1992–1993: Angel Dust Tour
1995: King for a Day Tour
1997–1998: Album of the Year Tour
2009–2012: The Second Coming Tour
2015: Soundwave Tour
2015: Sol Invictus Tour
2021-2022: Australian, New Zealand, European and US Tour
Band members
Current members
Mike Bordin – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Billy Gould – bass, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Roddy Bottum – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1983–1998; 2009–present)
Mike Patton – lead vocals (1988–1998; 2009–present)
Jon Hudson – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–1998; 2009–present)
Awards and nominations
Brit Awards
|-
| 1991 || Faith No More || International Group ||
Grammy Awards
|-
| 1990 || "The Real Thing" || Best Metal Performance ||
|-
| 1991 || "Epic" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
|-
| 1993 || "Angel Dust" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Album ||
Metal Storm Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Alternative Metal Album ||
MTV Video Music Awards
|-
| 1990 || "Epic" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Visual Effects in a Video ||
|-
| 1993 || "A Small Victory" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
Discography
Studio albums
We Care a Lot (1985)
Introduce Yourself (1987)
The Real Thing (1989)
Angel Dust (1992)
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime (1995)
Album of the Year (1997)
Sol Invictus (2015)
See also
List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area
List of alternative metal artists
List of funk metal and funk rock bands
Notes
1. The song was recorded in 1988 and first appeared on 1989's The Real Thing, although it gained popularity after being released as a single in 1990.
References
Bibliography
.
Prato, Greg (2013). The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion. Createspace. .
Harte, Adrian (2018). Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More. Jawbone Press. .
External links
Faith No More in Concert
American alternative metal musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
American funk metal musical groups
American experimental rock groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups from San Francisco
Slash Records artists
Ipecac Recordings artists
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Mission District, San Francisco
Musical quintets
Alternative rock groups from California
| true |
[
"\"What Difference Does It Make?\" is a song by the English rock band the Smiths, written by singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr. It was the band's third single and is featured on their debut album, The Smiths. A different version, recorded for the John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1, is included in the compilation album Hatful of Hollow.\n\nThe song was one of the band's first significant chart hits, peaking at No. 12 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nBackground\nThe character Ray Smith in the Jack Kerouac novel The Dharma Bums repeatedly says \"What difference does it make?\" as well as \"Pretty girls make graves\", the title of another track featured on The Smiths.\n\n\"What Difference Does It Make?\" was released without an accompanying music video. Speaking to Tony Fletcher on The Tube in 1984, Morrissey remarked that he felt that the video market was something that was going to \"die very quickly\", and that he wanted to \"herald the death\" of it.\n\nCover artwork \nThe single cover is a photograph of Terence Stamp, taken on the set of the film The Collector. Originally Stamp denied permission for the still to be used, and some pressings featured Morrissey in a re-enacted scene. In the re-enactment, Morrissey is holding a glass of milk, as opposed to a chloroform pad in the original. However, Stamp soon changed his mind, and the covers featuring Morrissey are now very rare and collectible.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nMorrissey – lead vocals\nJohnny Marr – guitars\nAndy Rourke – bass guitar\nMike Joyce – drums\n\nCharts\n\nNotes\n\n1984 singles\nThe Smiths songs\nSongs written by Morrissey\nSongs written by Johnny Marr\nRough Trade Records singles\n1984 songs\nUK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles",
"\"Life's What You Make It\" is a song by the English band Talk Talk. It was released as a single in 1985, the first from the band's album The Colour of Spring. The single was a hit in the UK, peaking at No. 16, and charted in numerous other countries, often reaching the Top 20.\n\nArtist James Marsh created the single's cover illustration. The track was re-released as a single in 1990, charting for a second time.\n\nConception\nThe song was one of the last to be conceived for The Colour of Spring, following concern from the band's management at the lack of an obvious single among accumulated work. Initially unwilling, Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene, the principal source of original material for the band, accepted the task as a challenge. Friese-Greene: \"I had a drum pattern loosely inspired by Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' and Mark was playing 'Green Onions' organ over the top.\" (Making No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart, \"Running Up That Hill\" had been released in August 1985.) The track was embellished with David Rhodes' guitar hook.\n\nPersonnel\n\nTalk Talk\nMark Hollis – lead vocal, piano\nPaul Webb – backing vocals\nLee Harris – drums\n\nAdditional musicians\nMartin Ditcham – percussion\nTim Friese-Greene – organ, Mellotron\nDavid Rhodes – guitar\n\nTrack listings\n\n 1985/86 single\n 7\" / 12\"\n \"Life's What You Make It\" – 4:25 (7\") / (extended version) – 8:16 (12\")\n \"It's Getting Late in the Evening\" – 5:43\n\n 12\" (double)\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (extended version) – 8:16\n \"It's Getting Late in the Evening\" – 5:43\n \"It's My Life\" – 6:16\n \"Does Caroline Know?\" – 4:33\n \"It's My Life\" – 3:50\n\n 12\"\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (extended version) – 6:58\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (early mix) – 6:39\n \"It's Getting Late in the Evening\" – 5:43\n\n 12\" (U.S.)\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (extended mix) – 6:54\n \"It's Getting Late in the Evening\" (7\" version) – 5:44\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (dub version) – 6:06\n|valign=\"top\"|\n\n 1990 single\n 7\" / cassette\n \"Life's What You Make It\" – 4:26\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (live from Hammersmith Odeon) – 4:41\n\n 12\"\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (the BBG remix) – 6:14\n \"Life's What You Make It\" – 4:26\n \"Tomorrow Started\" (live from Hammersmith Odeon) – 7:45\n\n CD\n \"Life's What You Make It\" – 4:29\n \"Tomorrow Started\" (live from Hammersmith Odeon) – 7:47\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (live from Hammersmith Odeon) – 4:41\n\n 12\"\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (the Fluke remix) – 6:16\n \"Life's What You Make It\" (the Dominic Woosey remix) – 8:21\n\nCharts\n\n1Remix\n\nCover versions\nIn 2009, \"Life's What You Make It\" was covered by Australian rock musician Rowland S. Howard for his final solo album Pop Crimes.\n \nFor the 2012 benefit tribute album Spirit of Talk Talk, \"Life's What You Make It\" was covered by singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik in a duet with Rachael Yamagata. In 2011 the Danish band Dúné recorded the song for the film ID:A.\n\nMore recently, a Placebo cover version of \"Life's What You Make It\" featured on both a double A-side (with \"Jesus' Son\") and the band's Life's What You Make It EP in 2016. American rock band Joywave covered the song for a Spotify Singles release for the music streaming service in 2018.\n\nIn popular culture\nThe track appeared in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, where it plays on the fictional in-game pop radio station Flash FM.\n\nReferences\n\n1985 songs\n1985 singles\n1986 singles\n1990 singles\nEMI Records singles\nSongs written by Mark Hollis (musician)\nSongs written by Tim Friese-Greene\nSong recordings produced by Tim Friese-Greene\nTalk Talk songs\nMusic videos directed by Tim Pope"
] |
[
"Faith No More",
"Angel Dust (1992-1994)",
"what is angel dust?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music does the band make?",
"gay disco"
] |
C_502dac1d421944dfaf5a09b716a19c4b_0
|
what year were they popular?
| 3 |
what year were Faith No More, Angel Dust popular?
|
Faith No More
|
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on their next album, Angel Dust. One critic writes that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another writes that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers (...) reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions." Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust, though not as successful as The Real Thing in the US, sold 665,000 copies there, and managed to outsell The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum), Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the UK. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies. After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, long-time guitarist Jim Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, describing it as "gay disco". According to Roddy Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. However, Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly offered to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined to join. The position was filled by Mike Patton's bandmate from Mr. Bungle, Trey Spruance, who left soon after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime and just before the band was to begin their world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech. CANNOTANSWER
|
1993,
|
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before settling on the current name in July 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest-remaining members of the band, having been involved since its inception. The band underwent several early lineup changes, and some major changes later. The current lineup of Faith No More consists of Gould, Bordin, Bottum, lead guitarist Jon Hudson, and vocalist/lyricist Mike Patton.
After releasing six studio albums, including best-selling records The Real Thing (1989) and Angel Dust (1992), Faith No More officially announced its breakup on April 20, 1998. The band has since reunited, conducting The Second Coming Tour between 2009 and 2010, and releasing its seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. After the touring cycle of Sol Invictus, Faith No More went on hiatus once again. In November 2019, the band announced that it would reunite to embark on a 2020 UK and European tour, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was postponed. Touring was due to recommence with a brief US tour in September 2021, followed by the previously postponed UK and Europe dates in June 2022, but all tour dates were cancelled with Patton citing mental health reasons.
History
Early days (1979–1984)
The genesis of Faith No More was the group Sharp Young Men, formed in 1979 by vocalist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould joined afterwards. Morris called the name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time". Later, he proposed the name Faith In No Man, but eventually the band settled on Bordin's suggestion, Faith No Man (stylized as Faith. No Man). The band recorded "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", released in 1983. The songs were recorded in Matt Wallace's parents' garage, where Wallace had set up and been running a recording studio while the band was still recording under the name Sharp Young Men, with Morris, Gould, Bordin and Worthington. Worthington left shortly thereafter. The band's name was changed to Faith No Man for the release of the single, which featured two of the three songs recorded in Wallace's garage, and Roddy Bottum replaced Worthington. Bottum, Gould and Bordin quit the band shortly after and formed Faith No More. They chose the name in mid-1983 to accentuate the fact that "The Man" (Morris) was "No More". The band played with several vocalists and guitarists, including a brief stint with Courtney Love, until it settled on vocalist Chuck Mosley in 1983 and, later, guitarist Jim Martin. Their first release under the Faith No More name was a self-titled cassette in 1983, which featured a live performance from that year on Side A, and a 20 minute instrumental track on Side B.
We Care a Lot and Introduce Yourself (1985–1988)
After the name change, the band initially started recording We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz, who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records, under which the band, after getting the necessary financial support, finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.
In late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently been sold to the Warner Music Group subsidiary London Records, ensuring a widespread release for the band's following albums. Introduce Yourself was released in April 1987, and a revamped version of their debut album's title track "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV. Mosley's behaviour had started to become increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Incidents include him allegedly punching Billy Gould on stage, the release party for the album Introduce Yourself—during which he fell asleep on stage—and one of Mosley's roadies getting into a fistfight with Martin during the European tour. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe. Gould reflected, "There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I just said: 'I'm done—I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios."
Mike Patton joins and The Real Thing (1989–1991)
Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard a demo of Mr. Bungle. According to Patton, he first met the band during a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his hometown of Eureka, California. Two weeks after joining Faith No More, he had written all the lyrics for the songs that made up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing, which was released in June 1989.
"Epic" was released in January 1990 and was a top 10 hit. The music video received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, and angered animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water at the end of the video. That same year, Faith No More performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1). "From Out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" were released as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was produced for non-vinyl releases. In 1990, the band went on an extensive U.S. tour, sending The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the U.S., and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, U.K., and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4 million worldwide.
In February 1991, Faith No More released its only official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy. The album includes two previously unreleased studio tracks, "The Grade" and "The Cowboy Song". The same year, the band contributed the song "The Perfect Crime" to the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" as the head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". Patton's original band Mr. Bungle went on to sign with Slash and Reprise Records's parent label Warner Bros. Records in 1991, after the worldwide success of The Real Thing.
Angel Dust (1992–1994)
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on its next album, Angel Dust, released in June 1992. One critic wrote that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers [...] reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions."
Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores' "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust charted one spot higher on the Billboard 200 than The Real Thing, but was not as commercially successful in the U.S., selling 665,000 copies there. It outsold The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum) and Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the U.K. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies.
After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, longtime guitarist Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, calling it "gay disco". According to Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly invited to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined. The position was filled by Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance, who left after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, just before the band was to begin its world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech.
King for a Day..., Album of the Year and break-up (1995–1998)
Faith No More's fifth studio album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, was released in March 1995, and varies greatly from song to song in style; punk, country, jazz, bossa nova, thrash metal, gospel music, along with other signature FNM elements, are woven together throughout the album. Singles included "Digging the Grave", "Evidence", and "Ricochet". The album featured Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance on guitar. The record went Gold in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany, which gave the album a respectable sales figure of around 1.5 million copies; this was significantly lower than sales of their previous albums. A 7 x 7-inch box set of singles was released, which included the B-sides and some interviews between the songs.
Album of the Year was released in June 1997 and featured yet another new guitarist, Jon Hudson, who was a former roommate of Billy Gould. The album debuted much higher than expected in some countries (for example, in Germany, the album debuted at No. 2 and stayed in the chart for 5 months). In Australia, Album of the Year went to No. 1 and was certified Platinum. The album charted in many countries in Europe. To date, Album of the Year has sold around 2 million copies worldwide. The singles "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Cup of Sorrow" had minimal success (notably, the music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow", which featured actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo). "Stripsearch" was released as a single in various countries (excluding the U.S. and U.K.). The album received largely negative reviews from U.S.-based critics at the time. Rolling Stone magazine wrote in their original review "[They] are floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant", while Pitchfork Media stated "Album Of The Year leaves one feeling like waking up and finding last night's used condom – sure, the ride was fun while it lasted, but what remains is just plain icky. And you definitely don't want it in your CD player." Following the album's release, Faith No More toured with Limp Bizkit in 1997, who were frequently booed by Faith No More's fans.
In early 1998, rumors of Faith No More's imminent demise began. Starting with a rumor posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favor of side projects, this rumor, although denied at the time, proved to be at least partly true. Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon, Portugal on April 7, 1998. The band cancelled their planned support tour for Aerosmith and on April 20, Billy Gould released a statement by email and fax, saying "[T]he decision among the members is mutual" and "the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered." The band "thank[ed] all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history."
Reformation (2009–2012)
Rumours that Faith No More would reunite for shows in the U.K. in the summer of 2009 were circulating in late November 2008, but were originally dismissed by bassist Billy Gould. He explained: "If anything like this were to happen, it would have to come from the band, and I haven't spoken with any of them in over a year. So as far as I know, there isn't anything to talk about, and I'm pretty sure that if you were to contact Patton, he would tell you the same thing."
However, on February 24, 2009, after months of speculation and rumors, Faith No More announced they would be reforming with a line-up identical to the Album of the Year era, embarking on a reunion tour called The Second Coming Tour. To coincide with the band's reunion tour, Rhino released the sixth Faith No More compilation, The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection, a double album that includes their hit singles and b sides & rarities, in the U.K. on June 8. Faith No More then played in major European festivals including Download Festival in the U.K. in June, Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany, Greenfield Festival in Switzerland, Hove Festival in Norway and Roskilde Festival in Denmark, among other dates. The tour continued into 2010 with appearances at the Soundwave Festival in Australian cities throughout February and March. During their tour, the band added covers to their repertoire including "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga and "Switch" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
After an eleven-month hiatus, Faith No More played four shows in South America in November 2011. On the first date (November 8, 2011), the band played a "mystery song," which led to speculation of new material. They played Sonisphere France on July 7, 2012. Following several more shows in Europe during 2012, Faith No More became temporarily inactive again. Mike Patton spent 2013 touring with his reformed rock supergroup Tomahawk, while the band's other members also pursued their own side projects. In July 2013, Billy Gould confirmed that the band's hiatus would not be permanent, saying "We will do something again only when all members are with the focus on that, and ready for the challenge. This is not the time... yet."
In a 2015 interview, Roddy Bottum said that the band originally intended to reform with guitarist Jim Martin for their reunion tour, but it did not happen.
Sol Invictus, hiatus and touring (2015–present)
On May 29, 2014, Faith No More posted a message (along with a photograph of Mike Patton) on their Twitter account, saying that "the reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative." On July 4, Faith No More played their first show in two years at Hyde Park in London, supporting Black Sabbath. At that show, Faith No More debuted two new songs "Motherfucker" and "Superhero" (also known by fans as "Leader of Men"). On August 20, the band posted "The Reunion Tour is over; in 2015 things are going to change." These tweets led to speculation that the band was working on new material. On August 30, Gould said that the band is "considering doing something new", and may begin work on a new studio album at some point in the not-too-distant future, explaining, "to do something creative would be a really good thing to do." On September 2, Bill Gould revealed to Rolling Stone that the band had begun work on a new album. Faith No More headlined the final edition of Australia's Soundwave in February and March 2015.
The band released their seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. The songs on the album were influenced by The Cramps, Link Wray and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Speaking to Revolver, Gould described the song "Cone of Shame" as "blues-based rock and roll". Describing the song "Matador", he said: "parts of it remind me of the first Siouxsie and the Banshees album. We used real pianos and that brings this organic quality to it to the music". The second single from the album, "Superhero", was shared by the band on March 1, 2015.
In August 2016, the band performed two concerts with former lead singer Chuck Mosley to celebrate the reissue of their debut album We Care a Lot. The band was billed as "Chuck Mosley & Friends" for the two shows and featured the lineup of Mosley, Mike Bordin, Billy Gould, Jon Hudson and Roddy Bottum.
Former Faith No More singer Chuck Mosley died on November 9, 2017, due to "the disease of addiction." He was 57 years old.
In February 2018, it was announced that a documentary film on the late former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley had begun production; titled Thanks. And Sorry: The Chuck Mosley Movie, the film is being directed and edited by Drew Fortier and produced by Douglas Esper.
On November 23, 2019, Faith No More updated its official website and social media accounts with an image of the band's eight-pointed star logo in front of a snow-covered mountain top, accompanied by a clock counting down to November 26, 2019; on the latter date, the band announced its first shows in five years set to take place in Europe in June 2020, including Sunstroke Festival in Ireland, Hellfest in France and Tons of Rock in Norway. Less than twenty-four hours later, the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain, scheduled for July 2020, was added to the list of the band's festival dates. They subsequently rescheduled most of its tour dates, including the Australian and European legs, to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band was scheduled to play two shows at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles with System of a Down, Helmet and Russian Circles, which were initially set to take place May 22–23, 2020, but were postponed twice due to the pandemic, and Faith No More was replaced by Korn. The band was scheduled to play additional shows in September 2021 but these were also cancelled with Mike Patton citing mental health reasons.
Musical style and influences
Faith No More's music is generally considered to be alternative metal, experimental rock, , alternative rock, and rap metal; however, as Faith No Man, their sound was described as post-punk. The band's first single from 1983, "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", was labelled as a "solid post-punk/pre-goth single." These elements endured during their tenure with Chucky Mosley, with AllMusic comparing their first album to early Public Image Ltd works, and Mosley's vocals drawing comparisons to Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy and H.R. of Bad Brains. By the mid-1980s, Billy Gould stated the band were in a "weird spot", as their eclectic sound didn't fit in with the burgeoning hardcore punk and alternative rock movements of the era. Upon Mike Patton's arrival in 1989, the band began to expand their sound range even further, merging disparate genres such as synth-pop, thrash metal, and carousel music on The Real Thing. Rolling Stone states that by 1997, the band were "too heavy for the post-grunge pop hits of The Verve and Third Eye Blind [and] too arty to work comfortably with the nu metal knuckle-draggers they spawned." Over the course of their career, they have experimented with heavy metal, funk, hip hop, progressive rock, alternative rock, hardcore punk, polka, country, easy listening, jazz, samba, ska, bossa nova, hard rock, pop, soul, trip hop, gospel, and lounge music.
Faith No More's lyrics have been described as "bizarrely humorous". When interviewed about his lyrics, Patton responded, "I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works more with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm, not because of the meaning."
In addition to the band's subsequently more apparent metal influences, like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, Bordin acknowledged many gothic rock and post-punk bands as early influences, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Public Image Ltd, and Theatre of Hate. Upon reforming, Faith No More returned to these influences on Sol Invictus.
Legacy
In a 2015 article by Artistdirect, the musicians Duff McKagan, Chino Moreno, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Max Cavalera and Jonathan Davis all praised the band for their significance and influence. Nirvana bassist, and co-founder, Krist Novoselic cited Faith No More as a band that "paved the way for Nirvana" in the late 1980s. Robert Plant, singer of Led Zeppelin, mentioned the then Chuck Mosley-led Faith No More as one of his current favorite bands in a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone. Plant and Faith No More subsequently toured together following The Real Things release. Scott Ian of Anthrax has also named Faith No More as one of his favorite bands.
Corey Taylor (frontman for both Slipknot and Stone Sour) told Loudwire in 2015 that if it wasn't for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today." While recovering from an attempted suicide at his grandmother's house, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
They were voted No. 52 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". The band is credited for inventing the alternative metal genre which began in the 1980s and that fuses metal with other genres, including alternative rock. Tim Grierson of About.com said the band "helped put alternative metal on the map." Faith No More has also been credited for influencing nu metal bands, such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Sevendust, primarily due to the popularity of "Epic", and other early material that featured rap and rock crossovers. Papa Roach vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, a self-confessed fan of the band, stated in a 2015 interview "They fused some of that hip-hop and rock together. They were one of the earliest bands to do that, and definitely pioneers to a whole genre. If you listen to Korn, if you listen to how the bass and the drums lock up, it's quite similar to how Faith No More was doing it in their early years." In a 2019 interview on the Australian channel Rage's Midnight Show, Tobias Forge, leader of the Swedish rock band Ghost, explained what the band meant to him by saying, "In the 90s there were a few bands that I liked a lot, and still like to this day, that are consecutively hard to niche. One band is Faith No More. Who knows what they play? No one knows really. It's a synth band? No. Is it a heavy metal band? No, not really. It's just a really, really good rock band."
Faith No More have been covered by prominent metal acts such as 36 Crazyfists, Apocalyptica, Atreyu, Between the Buried and Me, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Helloween, Ill Niño, Korn, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Redemption, Revocation, Sentenced, Slaves on Dope and Trail of Tears. In 2002, a tribute album titled Tribute of the Year (a reference to Faith No More's Album of the Year) was released by Underground Inc. It featured 30 Faith No More songs covered by mostly unknown independent hardcore punk, industrial and alternative metal acts.
The band and their 1989 single "Epic" have frequently been cited as an example of an '80s or '90s one-hit wonder. Flavorwire stated in 2014 "Although the band always had a loyal fan base and Patton remains an indie hero, they only cracked the Billboard Hot 100 once, with Epic." Others have noted that after "Epics success, the band still managed to remain highly popular in regions outside North America: including Australia, South America, Europe and the U.K. The band's original final record Album of the Year notably experienced high sales in countries such as Australia (where it went platinum), New Zealand and Germany, while being deemed a commercial failure in their native USA.
After the release of The Real Thing, a feud developed between Faith No More and fellow funk-influenced Californian group Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom they had previously played with on The Uplift Mofo Party Tour, while Chuck Mosley was still Faith No More's lead singer. Over the years, the feud has largely been fueled by the media, including TV personalities such as Greg Gutfeld. Despite this, various members of Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers appear to have remained on good terms since the initial controversy. Regarding the perceived conflict, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea stated in a mid-90s interview, "There was never any fight between us, that was a bunch of bullshit created by the media. I mean I think they're a good band. Maybe there was some things said between Anthony and the singer [Patton], but it all means nothing to me. Those guys in the band are nice people and there's no fight." At a 2014 show in Brooklyn, Red Hot Chili Peppers also notably covered a portion of the Chuck Mosley-era song "We Care a Lot".
Concert tours
1979–1984: Early shows
1985–1986: We Care a Lot Tour
1987–1988: Introduce Yourself Tour
1989–1991: The Real Thing Tour
1992–1993: Angel Dust Tour
1995: King for a Day Tour
1997–1998: Album of the Year Tour
2009–2012: The Second Coming Tour
2015: Soundwave Tour
2015: Sol Invictus Tour
2021-2022: Australian, New Zealand, European and US Tour
Band members
Current members
Mike Bordin – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Billy Gould – bass, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Roddy Bottum – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1983–1998; 2009–present)
Mike Patton – lead vocals (1988–1998; 2009–present)
Jon Hudson – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–1998; 2009–present)
Awards and nominations
Brit Awards
|-
| 1991 || Faith No More || International Group ||
Grammy Awards
|-
| 1990 || "The Real Thing" || Best Metal Performance ||
|-
| 1991 || "Epic" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
|-
| 1993 || "Angel Dust" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Album ||
Metal Storm Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Alternative Metal Album ||
MTV Video Music Awards
|-
| 1990 || "Epic" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Visual Effects in a Video ||
|-
| 1993 || "A Small Victory" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
Discography
Studio albums
We Care a Lot (1985)
Introduce Yourself (1987)
The Real Thing (1989)
Angel Dust (1992)
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime (1995)
Album of the Year (1997)
Sol Invictus (2015)
See also
List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area
List of alternative metal artists
List of funk metal and funk rock bands
Notes
1. The song was recorded in 1988 and first appeared on 1989's The Real Thing, although it gained popularity after being released as a single in 1990.
References
Bibliography
.
Prato, Greg (2013). The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion. Createspace. .
Harte, Adrian (2018). Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More. Jawbone Press. .
External links
Faith No More in Concert
American alternative metal musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
American funk metal musical groups
American experimental rock groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups from San Francisco
Slash Records artists
Ipecac Recordings artists
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Mission District, San Francisco
Musical quintets
Alternative rock groups from California
| true |
[
"Robert G. Brown (ca. 1870–1920) was an American inventor who made the first telephone handset, in 1878. The Gold and Stock Exchange in New York used a few of the handsets. They were not accepted by the Bell Company until nearly fifty years later, when they began being used in the United States. Robert G. Brown graduated from Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (which became what's today known as Polytechnic Institute of New York University) in 1868.\n\nEurope connection\nBrown went to France with the hope that there would be more receptivity to his idea. In 1879, the Société Générale des Téléphones produced a telephone using Brown's handset design, which became popular in Europe.\n\nNotes\n\n1920 deaths\nTelephony\n19th-century American inventors\nYear of birth uncertain\nPolytechnic Institute of New York University alumni",
"Me TV (known as Мэн патологоанатом Телевизор in Russia, Mnie Telewizja in Poland, and Sa akin Telebisyon in the Philippines), was a popular Nickelodeon interstitial show about children from around world and their many passions, hobbies, and interest. The live action show was shot all over Asia and Europe, where kids were asked to answer everything under the sun from what their favorite foods and movie stars were, to probing questions like \"What would you do if you were President of your country?\" Popular episodes filmed in the Philippines and India included \"What's in your lunchbox?\", \"How do you get to school?\" and \"What would you do if you could design your own uniform\"? The show aired from 1998 to 2001, and 26 episodes were produced in the length of two TV seasons.\n\n1990s Russian television series\n2000s Russian television series\n1998 Russian television series debuts\n2001 Russian television series endings"
] |
[
"Faith No More",
"Angel Dust (1992-1994)",
"what is angel dust?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music does the band make?",
"gay disco",
"what year were they popular?",
"1993,"
] |
C_502dac1d421944dfaf5a09b716a19c4b_0
|
did they ever win any awards?
| 4 |
did Faith No More, Angel Dust ever win any awards?
|
Faith No More
|
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on their next album, Angel Dust. One critic writes that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another writes that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers (...) reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions." Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust, though not as successful as The Real Thing in the US, sold 665,000 copies there, and managed to outsell The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum), Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the UK. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies. After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, long-time guitarist Jim Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, describing it as "gay disco". According to Roddy Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. However, Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly offered to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined to join. The position was filled by Mike Patton's bandmate from Mr. Bungle, Trey Spruance, who left soon after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime and just before the band was to begin their world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before settling on the current name in July 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest-remaining members of the band, having been involved since its inception. The band underwent several early lineup changes, and some major changes later. The current lineup of Faith No More consists of Gould, Bordin, Bottum, lead guitarist Jon Hudson, and vocalist/lyricist Mike Patton.
After releasing six studio albums, including best-selling records The Real Thing (1989) and Angel Dust (1992), Faith No More officially announced its breakup on April 20, 1998. The band has since reunited, conducting The Second Coming Tour between 2009 and 2010, and releasing its seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. After the touring cycle of Sol Invictus, Faith No More went on hiatus once again. In November 2019, the band announced that it would reunite to embark on a 2020 UK and European tour, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was postponed. Touring was due to recommence with a brief US tour in September 2021, followed by the previously postponed UK and Europe dates in June 2022, but all tour dates were cancelled with Patton citing mental health reasons.
History
Early days (1979–1984)
The genesis of Faith No More was the group Sharp Young Men, formed in 1979 by vocalist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould joined afterwards. Morris called the name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time". Later, he proposed the name Faith In No Man, but eventually the band settled on Bordin's suggestion, Faith No Man (stylized as Faith. No Man). The band recorded "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", released in 1983. The songs were recorded in Matt Wallace's parents' garage, where Wallace had set up and been running a recording studio while the band was still recording under the name Sharp Young Men, with Morris, Gould, Bordin and Worthington. Worthington left shortly thereafter. The band's name was changed to Faith No Man for the release of the single, which featured two of the three songs recorded in Wallace's garage, and Roddy Bottum replaced Worthington. Bottum, Gould and Bordin quit the band shortly after and formed Faith No More. They chose the name in mid-1983 to accentuate the fact that "The Man" (Morris) was "No More". The band played with several vocalists and guitarists, including a brief stint with Courtney Love, until it settled on vocalist Chuck Mosley in 1983 and, later, guitarist Jim Martin. Their first release under the Faith No More name was a self-titled cassette in 1983, which featured a live performance from that year on Side A, and a 20 minute instrumental track on Side B.
We Care a Lot and Introduce Yourself (1985–1988)
After the name change, the band initially started recording We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz, who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records, under which the band, after getting the necessary financial support, finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.
In late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently been sold to the Warner Music Group subsidiary London Records, ensuring a widespread release for the band's following albums. Introduce Yourself was released in April 1987, and a revamped version of their debut album's title track "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV. Mosley's behaviour had started to become increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Incidents include him allegedly punching Billy Gould on stage, the release party for the album Introduce Yourself—during which he fell asleep on stage—and one of Mosley's roadies getting into a fistfight with Martin during the European tour. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe. Gould reflected, "There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I just said: 'I'm done—I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios."
Mike Patton joins and The Real Thing (1989–1991)
Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard a demo of Mr. Bungle. According to Patton, he first met the band during a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his hometown of Eureka, California. Two weeks after joining Faith No More, he had written all the lyrics for the songs that made up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing, which was released in June 1989.
"Epic" was released in January 1990 and was a top 10 hit. The music video received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, and angered animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water at the end of the video. That same year, Faith No More performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1). "From Out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" were released as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was produced for non-vinyl releases. In 1990, the band went on an extensive U.S. tour, sending The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the U.S., and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, U.K., and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4 million worldwide.
In February 1991, Faith No More released its only official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy. The album includes two previously unreleased studio tracks, "The Grade" and "The Cowboy Song". The same year, the band contributed the song "The Perfect Crime" to the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" as the head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". Patton's original band Mr. Bungle went on to sign with Slash and Reprise Records's parent label Warner Bros. Records in 1991, after the worldwide success of The Real Thing.
Angel Dust (1992–1994)
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on its next album, Angel Dust, released in June 1992. One critic wrote that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers [...] reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions."
Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores' "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust charted one spot higher on the Billboard 200 than The Real Thing, but was not as commercially successful in the U.S., selling 665,000 copies there. It outsold The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum) and Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the U.K. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies.
After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, longtime guitarist Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, calling it "gay disco". According to Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly invited to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined. The position was filled by Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance, who left after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, just before the band was to begin its world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech.
King for a Day..., Album of the Year and break-up (1995–1998)
Faith No More's fifth studio album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, was released in March 1995, and varies greatly from song to song in style; punk, country, jazz, bossa nova, thrash metal, gospel music, along with other signature FNM elements, are woven together throughout the album. Singles included "Digging the Grave", "Evidence", and "Ricochet". The album featured Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance on guitar. The record went Gold in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany, which gave the album a respectable sales figure of around 1.5 million copies; this was significantly lower than sales of their previous albums. A 7 x 7-inch box set of singles was released, which included the B-sides and some interviews between the songs.
Album of the Year was released in June 1997 and featured yet another new guitarist, Jon Hudson, who was a former roommate of Billy Gould. The album debuted much higher than expected in some countries (for example, in Germany, the album debuted at No. 2 and stayed in the chart for 5 months). In Australia, Album of the Year went to No. 1 and was certified Platinum. The album charted in many countries in Europe. To date, Album of the Year has sold around 2 million copies worldwide. The singles "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Cup of Sorrow" had minimal success (notably, the music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow", which featured actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo). "Stripsearch" was released as a single in various countries (excluding the U.S. and U.K.). The album received largely negative reviews from U.S.-based critics at the time. Rolling Stone magazine wrote in their original review "[They] are floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant", while Pitchfork Media stated "Album Of The Year leaves one feeling like waking up and finding last night's used condom – sure, the ride was fun while it lasted, but what remains is just plain icky. And you definitely don't want it in your CD player." Following the album's release, Faith No More toured with Limp Bizkit in 1997, who were frequently booed by Faith No More's fans.
In early 1998, rumors of Faith No More's imminent demise began. Starting with a rumor posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favor of side projects, this rumor, although denied at the time, proved to be at least partly true. Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon, Portugal on April 7, 1998. The band cancelled their planned support tour for Aerosmith and on April 20, Billy Gould released a statement by email and fax, saying "[T]he decision among the members is mutual" and "the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered." The band "thank[ed] all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history."
Reformation (2009–2012)
Rumours that Faith No More would reunite for shows in the U.K. in the summer of 2009 were circulating in late November 2008, but were originally dismissed by bassist Billy Gould. He explained: "If anything like this were to happen, it would have to come from the band, and I haven't spoken with any of them in over a year. So as far as I know, there isn't anything to talk about, and I'm pretty sure that if you were to contact Patton, he would tell you the same thing."
However, on February 24, 2009, after months of speculation and rumors, Faith No More announced they would be reforming with a line-up identical to the Album of the Year era, embarking on a reunion tour called The Second Coming Tour. To coincide with the band's reunion tour, Rhino released the sixth Faith No More compilation, The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection, a double album that includes their hit singles and b sides & rarities, in the U.K. on June 8. Faith No More then played in major European festivals including Download Festival in the U.K. in June, Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany, Greenfield Festival in Switzerland, Hove Festival in Norway and Roskilde Festival in Denmark, among other dates. The tour continued into 2010 with appearances at the Soundwave Festival in Australian cities throughout February and March. During their tour, the band added covers to their repertoire including "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga and "Switch" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
After an eleven-month hiatus, Faith No More played four shows in South America in November 2011. On the first date (November 8, 2011), the band played a "mystery song," which led to speculation of new material. They played Sonisphere France on July 7, 2012. Following several more shows in Europe during 2012, Faith No More became temporarily inactive again. Mike Patton spent 2013 touring with his reformed rock supergroup Tomahawk, while the band's other members also pursued their own side projects. In July 2013, Billy Gould confirmed that the band's hiatus would not be permanent, saying "We will do something again only when all members are with the focus on that, and ready for the challenge. This is not the time... yet."
In a 2015 interview, Roddy Bottum said that the band originally intended to reform with guitarist Jim Martin for their reunion tour, but it did not happen.
Sol Invictus, hiatus and touring (2015–present)
On May 29, 2014, Faith No More posted a message (along with a photograph of Mike Patton) on their Twitter account, saying that "the reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative." On July 4, Faith No More played their first show in two years at Hyde Park in London, supporting Black Sabbath. At that show, Faith No More debuted two new songs "Motherfucker" and "Superhero" (also known by fans as "Leader of Men"). On August 20, the band posted "The Reunion Tour is over; in 2015 things are going to change." These tweets led to speculation that the band was working on new material. On August 30, Gould said that the band is "considering doing something new", and may begin work on a new studio album at some point in the not-too-distant future, explaining, "to do something creative would be a really good thing to do." On September 2, Bill Gould revealed to Rolling Stone that the band had begun work on a new album. Faith No More headlined the final edition of Australia's Soundwave in February and March 2015.
The band released their seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. The songs on the album were influenced by The Cramps, Link Wray and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Speaking to Revolver, Gould described the song "Cone of Shame" as "blues-based rock and roll". Describing the song "Matador", he said: "parts of it remind me of the first Siouxsie and the Banshees album. We used real pianos and that brings this organic quality to it to the music". The second single from the album, "Superhero", was shared by the band on March 1, 2015.
In August 2016, the band performed two concerts with former lead singer Chuck Mosley to celebrate the reissue of their debut album We Care a Lot. The band was billed as "Chuck Mosley & Friends" for the two shows and featured the lineup of Mosley, Mike Bordin, Billy Gould, Jon Hudson and Roddy Bottum.
Former Faith No More singer Chuck Mosley died on November 9, 2017, due to "the disease of addiction." He was 57 years old.
In February 2018, it was announced that a documentary film on the late former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley had begun production; titled Thanks. And Sorry: The Chuck Mosley Movie, the film is being directed and edited by Drew Fortier and produced by Douglas Esper.
On November 23, 2019, Faith No More updated its official website and social media accounts with an image of the band's eight-pointed star logo in front of a snow-covered mountain top, accompanied by a clock counting down to November 26, 2019; on the latter date, the band announced its first shows in five years set to take place in Europe in June 2020, including Sunstroke Festival in Ireland, Hellfest in France and Tons of Rock in Norway. Less than twenty-four hours later, the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain, scheduled for July 2020, was added to the list of the band's festival dates. They subsequently rescheduled most of its tour dates, including the Australian and European legs, to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band was scheduled to play two shows at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles with System of a Down, Helmet and Russian Circles, which were initially set to take place May 22–23, 2020, but were postponed twice due to the pandemic, and Faith No More was replaced by Korn. The band was scheduled to play additional shows in September 2021 but these were also cancelled with Mike Patton citing mental health reasons.
Musical style and influences
Faith No More's music is generally considered to be alternative metal, experimental rock, , alternative rock, and rap metal; however, as Faith No Man, their sound was described as post-punk. The band's first single from 1983, "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", was labelled as a "solid post-punk/pre-goth single." These elements endured during their tenure with Chucky Mosley, with AllMusic comparing their first album to early Public Image Ltd works, and Mosley's vocals drawing comparisons to Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy and H.R. of Bad Brains. By the mid-1980s, Billy Gould stated the band were in a "weird spot", as their eclectic sound didn't fit in with the burgeoning hardcore punk and alternative rock movements of the era. Upon Mike Patton's arrival in 1989, the band began to expand their sound range even further, merging disparate genres such as synth-pop, thrash metal, and carousel music on The Real Thing. Rolling Stone states that by 1997, the band were "too heavy for the post-grunge pop hits of The Verve and Third Eye Blind [and] too arty to work comfortably with the nu metal knuckle-draggers they spawned." Over the course of their career, they have experimented with heavy metal, funk, hip hop, progressive rock, alternative rock, hardcore punk, polka, country, easy listening, jazz, samba, ska, bossa nova, hard rock, pop, soul, trip hop, gospel, and lounge music.
Faith No More's lyrics have been described as "bizarrely humorous". When interviewed about his lyrics, Patton responded, "I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works more with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm, not because of the meaning."
In addition to the band's subsequently more apparent metal influences, like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, Bordin acknowledged many gothic rock and post-punk bands as early influences, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Public Image Ltd, and Theatre of Hate. Upon reforming, Faith No More returned to these influences on Sol Invictus.
Legacy
In a 2015 article by Artistdirect, the musicians Duff McKagan, Chino Moreno, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Max Cavalera and Jonathan Davis all praised the band for their significance and influence. Nirvana bassist, and co-founder, Krist Novoselic cited Faith No More as a band that "paved the way for Nirvana" in the late 1980s. Robert Plant, singer of Led Zeppelin, mentioned the then Chuck Mosley-led Faith No More as one of his current favorite bands in a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone. Plant and Faith No More subsequently toured together following The Real Things release. Scott Ian of Anthrax has also named Faith No More as one of his favorite bands.
Corey Taylor (frontman for both Slipknot and Stone Sour) told Loudwire in 2015 that if it wasn't for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today." While recovering from an attempted suicide at his grandmother's house, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
They were voted No. 52 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". The band is credited for inventing the alternative metal genre which began in the 1980s and that fuses metal with other genres, including alternative rock. Tim Grierson of About.com said the band "helped put alternative metal on the map." Faith No More has also been credited for influencing nu metal bands, such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Sevendust, primarily due to the popularity of "Epic", and other early material that featured rap and rock crossovers. Papa Roach vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, a self-confessed fan of the band, stated in a 2015 interview "They fused some of that hip-hop and rock together. They were one of the earliest bands to do that, and definitely pioneers to a whole genre. If you listen to Korn, if you listen to how the bass and the drums lock up, it's quite similar to how Faith No More was doing it in their early years." In a 2019 interview on the Australian channel Rage's Midnight Show, Tobias Forge, leader of the Swedish rock band Ghost, explained what the band meant to him by saying, "In the 90s there were a few bands that I liked a lot, and still like to this day, that are consecutively hard to niche. One band is Faith No More. Who knows what they play? No one knows really. It's a synth band? No. Is it a heavy metal band? No, not really. It's just a really, really good rock band."
Faith No More have been covered by prominent metal acts such as 36 Crazyfists, Apocalyptica, Atreyu, Between the Buried and Me, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Helloween, Ill Niño, Korn, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Redemption, Revocation, Sentenced, Slaves on Dope and Trail of Tears. In 2002, a tribute album titled Tribute of the Year (a reference to Faith No More's Album of the Year) was released by Underground Inc. It featured 30 Faith No More songs covered by mostly unknown independent hardcore punk, industrial and alternative metal acts.
The band and their 1989 single "Epic" have frequently been cited as an example of an '80s or '90s one-hit wonder. Flavorwire stated in 2014 "Although the band always had a loyal fan base and Patton remains an indie hero, they only cracked the Billboard Hot 100 once, with Epic." Others have noted that after "Epics success, the band still managed to remain highly popular in regions outside North America: including Australia, South America, Europe and the U.K. The band's original final record Album of the Year notably experienced high sales in countries such as Australia (where it went platinum), New Zealand and Germany, while being deemed a commercial failure in their native USA.
After the release of The Real Thing, a feud developed between Faith No More and fellow funk-influenced Californian group Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom they had previously played with on The Uplift Mofo Party Tour, while Chuck Mosley was still Faith No More's lead singer. Over the years, the feud has largely been fueled by the media, including TV personalities such as Greg Gutfeld. Despite this, various members of Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers appear to have remained on good terms since the initial controversy. Regarding the perceived conflict, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea stated in a mid-90s interview, "There was never any fight between us, that was a bunch of bullshit created by the media. I mean I think they're a good band. Maybe there was some things said between Anthony and the singer [Patton], but it all means nothing to me. Those guys in the band are nice people and there's no fight." At a 2014 show in Brooklyn, Red Hot Chili Peppers also notably covered a portion of the Chuck Mosley-era song "We Care a Lot".
Concert tours
1979–1984: Early shows
1985–1986: We Care a Lot Tour
1987–1988: Introduce Yourself Tour
1989–1991: The Real Thing Tour
1992–1993: Angel Dust Tour
1995: King for a Day Tour
1997–1998: Album of the Year Tour
2009–2012: The Second Coming Tour
2015: Soundwave Tour
2015: Sol Invictus Tour
2021-2022: Australian, New Zealand, European and US Tour
Band members
Current members
Mike Bordin – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Billy Gould – bass, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Roddy Bottum – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1983–1998; 2009–present)
Mike Patton – lead vocals (1988–1998; 2009–present)
Jon Hudson – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–1998; 2009–present)
Awards and nominations
Brit Awards
|-
| 1991 || Faith No More || International Group ||
Grammy Awards
|-
| 1990 || "The Real Thing" || Best Metal Performance ||
|-
| 1991 || "Epic" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
|-
| 1993 || "Angel Dust" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Album ||
Metal Storm Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Alternative Metal Album ||
MTV Video Music Awards
|-
| 1990 || "Epic" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Visual Effects in a Video ||
|-
| 1993 || "A Small Victory" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
Discography
Studio albums
We Care a Lot (1985)
Introduce Yourself (1987)
The Real Thing (1989)
Angel Dust (1992)
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime (1995)
Album of the Year (1997)
Sol Invictus (2015)
See also
List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area
List of alternative metal artists
List of funk metal and funk rock bands
Notes
1. The song was recorded in 1988 and first appeared on 1989's The Real Thing, although it gained popularity after being released as a single in 1990.
References
Bibliography
.
Prato, Greg (2013). The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion. Createspace. .
Harte, Adrian (2018). Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More. Jawbone Press. .
External links
Faith No More in Concert
American alternative metal musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
American funk metal musical groups
American experimental rock groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups from San Francisco
Slash Records artists
Ipecac Recordings artists
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Mission District, San Francisco
Musical quintets
Alternative rock groups from California
| false |
[
"Stasys Razma (18 July 1898 – 30 July 1960) was a Lithuanian footballer who competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics.\n\nRazma was in the side that played in Lithuania's first ever international in 1923 against Estonia, which they lost 5–0, the following year he was called to play in his national side's first ever Olympic match which was in Paris, France, but the inexperienced side lost 9–0 to Switzerland so did not advance any further in the competition. Razma went on to play three more international matches including a 2–1 victory against Estonia, the country's first ever international win.\n\nReferences\n\n1898 births\n1960 deaths\nSportspeople from Kaunas\nLithuanian footballers\nAssociation football defenders\nLithuania international footballers\nFootballers at the 1924 Summer Olympics\nOlympic footballers of Lithuania",
"This is a list of films with performances that have been nominated in all of the Academy Award acting categories.\n\nThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences annually bestows Academy Awards for acting performances in the following four categories: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.\n\nFilms \n\nAs of the 93rd Academy Awards (2020), there have been fifteen films containing at least one nominated performance in each of the four Academy Award acting categories. \n\nIn the following list, award winners are listed in bold with gold background; others listed are nominees who did not win. No film has ever won all four awards.\n\nSuperlatives \n\nNo film has won all four awards.\n\nTwo films won three awards: \n\n A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) \n Network (1976)\n\nFour films hold a total of five nominations, each with an additional nomination within one of the four categories:\n\n Mrs. Miniver (1942) – two nominations for Best Supporting Actress\n From Here to Eternity (1953) – two nominations for Best Actor\n Bonnie and Clyde (1968) – two nominations for Best Supporting Actor\n Network (1976) – two nominations for Best Actor\n\nThree of the nominated films failed to win any of the four awards: \n\n My Man Godfrey (1936) – also failed to win any other Academy Awards\n Sunset Boulevard (1950)\n American Hustle (2013) – also failed to win any other Academy Awards\n\nOnly two of the nominated films won Best Picture:\n\n Mrs. Miniver (1942)\n From Here to Eternity (1953)\n\nOnly one of the nominated films was not nominated for Best Picture:\n\n My Man Godfrey (1936)\n\nFive performers were nominated for their work in two different films that received nominations in all acting categories (winners in bold):\n\n William Holden (Sunset Boulevard, Network)\n Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde, Reds)\n Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde, Network)\n Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle)\n Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle)\n\nOnly one director has directed two films that received nominations in all four categories:\n\n David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle)\n\nThe 40th Academy Awards (1967) was the only ceremony in which multiple films held at least one nomination in all four acting categories:\n\n Bonnie and Clyde\n Guess Who's Coming to Dinner\n\nAll of the films, except My Man Godfrey and For Whom the Bell Tolls, were also nominated for the \"Big Five\" categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted)).\n\nSee also \n\n List of Big Five Academy Award winners and nominees\n List of films with two or more Academy Awards in an acting category\n\nActing nom"
] |
[
"Faith No More",
"Angel Dust (1992-1994)",
"what is angel dust?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music does the band make?",
"gay disco",
"what year were they popular?",
"1993,",
"did they ever win any awards?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_502dac1d421944dfaf5a09b716a19c4b_0
|
are they still a band today?
| 5 |
are Faith No More, Angel Dust still a band today?
|
Faith No More
|
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on their next album, Angel Dust. One critic writes that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another writes that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers (...) reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions." Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust, though not as successful as The Real Thing in the US, sold 665,000 copies there, and managed to outsell The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum), Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the UK. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies. After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, long-time guitarist Jim Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, describing it as "gay disco". According to Roddy Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. However, Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly offered to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined to join. The position was filled by Mike Patton's bandmate from Mr. Bungle, Trey Spruance, who left soon after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime and just before the band was to begin their world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before settling on the current name in July 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest-remaining members of the band, having been involved since its inception. The band underwent several early lineup changes, and some major changes later. The current lineup of Faith No More consists of Gould, Bordin, Bottum, lead guitarist Jon Hudson, and vocalist/lyricist Mike Patton.
After releasing six studio albums, including best-selling records The Real Thing (1989) and Angel Dust (1992), Faith No More officially announced its breakup on April 20, 1998. The band has since reunited, conducting The Second Coming Tour between 2009 and 2010, and releasing its seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. After the touring cycle of Sol Invictus, Faith No More went on hiatus once again. In November 2019, the band announced that it would reunite to embark on a 2020 UK and European tour, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was postponed. Touring was due to recommence with a brief US tour in September 2021, followed by the previously postponed UK and Europe dates in June 2022, but all tour dates were cancelled with Patton citing mental health reasons.
History
Early days (1979–1984)
The genesis of Faith No More was the group Sharp Young Men, formed in 1979 by vocalist Mike Morris and keyboardist Wade Worthington. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould joined afterwards. Morris called the name "a piss-take on all the 'elegant' groups at the time". Later, he proposed the name Faith In No Man, but eventually the band settled on Bordin's suggestion, Faith No Man (stylized as Faith. No Man). The band recorded "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", released in 1983. The songs were recorded in Matt Wallace's parents' garage, where Wallace had set up and been running a recording studio while the band was still recording under the name Sharp Young Men, with Morris, Gould, Bordin and Worthington. Worthington left shortly thereafter. The band's name was changed to Faith No Man for the release of the single, which featured two of the three songs recorded in Wallace's garage, and Roddy Bottum replaced Worthington. Bottum, Gould and Bordin quit the band shortly after and formed Faith No More. They chose the name in mid-1983 to accentuate the fact that "The Man" (Morris) was "No More". The band played with several vocalists and guitarists, including a brief stint with Courtney Love, until it settled on vocalist Chuck Mosley in 1983 and, later, guitarist Jim Martin. Their first release under the Faith No More name was a self-titled cassette in 1983, which featured a live performance from that year on Side A, and a 20 minute instrumental track on Side B.
We Care a Lot and Introduce Yourself (1985–1988)
After the name change, the band initially started recording We Care a Lot without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz, who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records, under which the band, after getting the necessary financial support, finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.
In late 1986, Faith No More was signed to Los Angeles label Slash Records by Anna Statman. The label had recently been sold to the Warner Music Group subsidiary London Records, ensuring a widespread release for the band's following albums. Introduce Yourself was released in April 1987, and a revamped version of their debut album's title track "We Care a Lot" saw minor success on MTV. Mosley's behaviour had started to become increasingly erratic, particularly during a troubled tour of Europe in 1988. Incidents include him allegedly punching Billy Gould on stage, the release party for the album Introduce Yourself—during which he fell asleep on stage—and one of Mosley's roadies getting into a fistfight with Martin during the European tour. Mosley was eventually fired after the band returned home from Europe. Gould reflected, "There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. I just said: 'I'm done—I can't take this any longer. It's just so ridiculous'. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: 'Well, I still want to play with you'. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these 'firing somebody without firing them' scenarios."
Mike Patton joins and The Real Thing (1989–1991)
Mosley was replaced with singer Mike Patton in 1988. Patton, who was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle, was recruited at Martin's suggestion after he heard a demo of Mr. Bungle. According to Patton, he first met the band during a 1986 gig at "a pizza parlor" in his hometown of Eureka, California. Two weeks after joining Faith No More, he had written all the lyrics for the songs that made up the Grammy award-nominated The Real Thing, which was released in June 1989.
"Epic" was released in January 1990 and was a top 10 hit. The music video received extensive airplay on MTV in 1990, and angered animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water at the end of the video. That same year, Faith No More performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (September 6) and on the 293rd episode of Saturday Night Live (December 1). "From Out of Nowhere" and "Falling to Pieces" were released as singles, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was produced for non-vinyl releases. In 1990, the band went on an extensive U.S. tour, sending The Real Thing to Platinum status in Canada, the U.S., and South America. The album also had big sales numbers in Australia, U.K., and the rest of Europe, pushing the total sales well above 4 million worldwide.
In February 1991, Faith No More released its only official live album, Live at the Brixton Academy. The album includes two previously unreleased studio tracks, "The Grade" and "The Cowboy Song". The same year, the band contributed the song "The Perfect Crime" to the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Martin also made a brief cameo in the film as "Sir James Martin" as the head of the "Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Center". Patton's original band Mr. Bungle went on to sign with Slash and Reprise Records's parent label Warner Bros. Records in 1991, after the worldwide success of The Real Thing.
Angel Dust (1992–1994)
Faith No More displayed an even more experimental effort on its next album, Angel Dust, released in June 1992. One critic wrote that the album is "one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label" and another that the single "'A Small Victory', which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers [...] reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions."
Aside from "A Small Victory" (which received a nomination for Best Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards), the tracks "Midlife Crisis" and "Everything's Ruined" were also released as singles. The album included a re-recording of the theme to the film Midnight Cowboy, and later pressings included a cover of The Commodores' "Easy", which in some parts of the world became the band's biggest hit. Angel Dust charted one spot higher on the Billboard 200 than The Real Thing, but was not as commercially successful in the U.S., selling 665,000 copies there. It outsold The Real Thing in many other countries. In Germany, the record was certified Gold for sales of more than 250,000 copies. The album also matched the sales of The Real Thing in Canada (Platinum) and Australia (Gold), and surpassed it in the Netherlands, France, Russia, and the U.K. Worldwide sales are around 3.1 million copies.
After touring to support Angel Dust in the summer of 1993, longtime guitarist Martin left the band due to internal conflicts. He was reportedly unhappy with the band's change in musical direction on Angel Dust, calling it "gay disco". According to Bottum, Martin was fired via fax. Martin himself states it was his decision to leave. Both Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick and Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker were reportedly invited to join Faith No More after Martin's departure, but declined. The position was filled by Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance, who left after recording 1995's King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, just before the band was to begin its world tour. Spruance was replaced by Dean Menta, the band's keyboard tech.
King for a Day..., Album of the Year and break-up (1995–1998)
Faith No More's fifth studio album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, was released in March 1995, and varies greatly from song to song in style; punk, country, jazz, bossa nova, thrash metal, gospel music, along with other signature FNM elements, are woven together throughout the album. Singles included "Digging the Grave", "Evidence", and "Ricochet". The album featured Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance on guitar. The record went Gold in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Germany, which gave the album a respectable sales figure of around 1.5 million copies; this was significantly lower than sales of their previous albums. A 7 x 7-inch box set of singles was released, which included the B-sides and some interviews between the songs.
Album of the Year was released in June 1997 and featured yet another new guitarist, Jon Hudson, who was a former roommate of Billy Gould. The album debuted much higher than expected in some countries (for example, in Germany, the album debuted at No. 2 and stayed in the chart for 5 months). In Australia, Album of the Year went to No. 1 and was certified Platinum. The album charted in many countries in Europe. To date, Album of the Year has sold around 2 million copies worldwide. The singles "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Cup of Sorrow" had minimal success (notably, the music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow", which featured actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo). "Stripsearch" was released as a single in various countries (excluding the U.S. and U.K.). The album received largely negative reviews from U.S.-based critics at the time. Rolling Stone magazine wrote in their original review "[They] are floundering around desperately, groping for a sense of identity and direction in a decade that clearly finds them irrelevant", while Pitchfork Media stated "Album Of The Year leaves one feeling like waking up and finding last night's used condom – sure, the ride was fun while it lasted, but what remains is just plain icky. And you definitely don't want it in your CD player." Following the album's release, Faith No More toured with Limp Bizkit in 1997, who were frequently booed by Faith No More's fans.
In early 1998, rumors of Faith No More's imminent demise began. Starting with a rumor posted to the Faith No More newsgroup alt.music.faith-no-more claiming Mike Patton had quit the band in favor of side projects, this rumor, although denied at the time, proved to be at least partly true. Faith No More played their last show in Lisbon, Portugal on April 7, 1998. The band cancelled their planned support tour for Aerosmith and on April 20, Billy Gould released a statement by email and fax, saying "[T]he decision among the members is mutual" and "the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered." The band "thank[ed] all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history."
Reformation (2009–2012)
Rumours that Faith No More would reunite for shows in the U.K. in the summer of 2009 were circulating in late November 2008, but were originally dismissed by bassist Billy Gould. He explained: "If anything like this were to happen, it would have to come from the band, and I haven't spoken with any of them in over a year. So as far as I know, there isn't anything to talk about, and I'm pretty sure that if you were to contact Patton, he would tell you the same thing."
However, on February 24, 2009, after months of speculation and rumors, Faith No More announced they would be reforming with a line-up identical to the Album of the Year era, embarking on a reunion tour called The Second Coming Tour. To coincide with the band's reunion tour, Rhino released the sixth Faith No More compilation, The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection, a double album that includes their hit singles and b sides & rarities, in the U.K. on June 8. Faith No More then played in major European festivals including Download Festival in the U.K. in June, Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany, Greenfield Festival in Switzerland, Hove Festival in Norway and Roskilde Festival in Denmark, among other dates. The tour continued into 2010 with appearances at the Soundwave Festival in Australian cities throughout February and March. During their tour, the band added covers to their repertoire including "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga and "Switch" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
After an eleven-month hiatus, Faith No More played four shows in South America in November 2011. On the first date (November 8, 2011), the band played a "mystery song," which led to speculation of new material. They played Sonisphere France on July 7, 2012. Following several more shows in Europe during 2012, Faith No More became temporarily inactive again. Mike Patton spent 2013 touring with his reformed rock supergroup Tomahawk, while the band's other members also pursued their own side projects. In July 2013, Billy Gould confirmed that the band's hiatus would not be permanent, saying "We will do something again only when all members are with the focus on that, and ready for the challenge. This is not the time... yet."
In a 2015 interview, Roddy Bottum said that the band originally intended to reform with guitarist Jim Martin for their reunion tour, but it did not happen.
Sol Invictus, hiatus and touring (2015–present)
On May 29, 2014, Faith No More posted a message (along with a photograph of Mike Patton) on their Twitter account, saying that "the reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative." On July 4, Faith No More played their first show in two years at Hyde Park in London, supporting Black Sabbath. At that show, Faith No More debuted two new songs "Motherfucker" and "Superhero" (also known by fans as "Leader of Men"). On August 20, the band posted "The Reunion Tour is over; in 2015 things are going to change." These tweets led to speculation that the band was working on new material. On August 30, Gould said that the band is "considering doing something new", and may begin work on a new studio album at some point in the not-too-distant future, explaining, "to do something creative would be a really good thing to do." On September 2, Bill Gould revealed to Rolling Stone that the band had begun work on a new album. Faith No More headlined the final edition of Australia's Soundwave in February and March 2015.
The band released their seventh studio album, Sol Invictus, in May 2015. The songs on the album were influenced by The Cramps, Link Wray and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Speaking to Revolver, Gould described the song "Cone of Shame" as "blues-based rock and roll". Describing the song "Matador", he said: "parts of it remind me of the first Siouxsie and the Banshees album. We used real pianos and that brings this organic quality to it to the music". The second single from the album, "Superhero", was shared by the band on March 1, 2015.
In August 2016, the band performed two concerts with former lead singer Chuck Mosley to celebrate the reissue of their debut album We Care a Lot. The band was billed as "Chuck Mosley & Friends" for the two shows and featured the lineup of Mosley, Mike Bordin, Billy Gould, Jon Hudson and Roddy Bottum.
Former Faith No More singer Chuck Mosley died on November 9, 2017, due to "the disease of addiction." He was 57 years old.
In February 2018, it was announced that a documentary film on the late former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley had begun production; titled Thanks. And Sorry: The Chuck Mosley Movie, the film is being directed and edited by Drew Fortier and produced by Douglas Esper.
On November 23, 2019, Faith No More updated its official website and social media accounts with an image of the band's eight-pointed star logo in front of a snow-covered mountain top, accompanied by a clock counting down to November 26, 2019; on the latter date, the band announced its first shows in five years set to take place in Europe in June 2020, including Sunstroke Festival in Ireland, Hellfest in France and Tons of Rock in Norway. Less than twenty-four hours later, the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain, scheduled for July 2020, was added to the list of the band's festival dates. They subsequently rescheduled most of its tour dates, including the Australian and European legs, to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band was scheduled to play two shows at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles with System of a Down, Helmet and Russian Circles, which were initially set to take place May 22–23, 2020, but were postponed twice due to the pandemic, and Faith No More was replaced by Korn. The band was scheduled to play additional shows in September 2021 but these were also cancelled with Mike Patton citing mental health reasons.
Musical style and influences
Faith No More's music is generally considered to be alternative metal, experimental rock, , alternative rock, and rap metal; however, as Faith No Man, their sound was described as post-punk. The band's first single from 1983, "Quiet in Heaven/Song of Liberty", was labelled as a "solid post-punk/pre-goth single." These elements endured during their tenure with Chucky Mosley, with AllMusic comparing their first album to early Public Image Ltd works, and Mosley's vocals drawing comparisons to Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy and H.R. of Bad Brains. By the mid-1980s, Billy Gould stated the band were in a "weird spot", as their eclectic sound didn't fit in with the burgeoning hardcore punk and alternative rock movements of the era. Upon Mike Patton's arrival in 1989, the band began to expand their sound range even further, merging disparate genres such as synth-pop, thrash metal, and carousel music on The Real Thing. Rolling Stone states that by 1997, the band were "too heavy for the post-grunge pop hits of The Verve and Third Eye Blind [and] too arty to work comfortably with the nu metal knuckle-draggers they spawned." Over the course of their career, they have experimented with heavy metal, funk, hip hop, progressive rock, alternative rock, hardcore punk, polka, country, easy listening, jazz, samba, ska, bossa nova, hard rock, pop, soul, trip hop, gospel, and lounge music.
Faith No More's lyrics have been described as "bizarrely humorous". When interviewed about his lyrics, Patton responded, "I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works more with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm, not because of the meaning."
In addition to the band's subsequently more apparent metal influences, like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, Bordin acknowledged many gothic rock and post-punk bands as early influences, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Public Image Ltd, and Theatre of Hate. Upon reforming, Faith No More returned to these influences on Sol Invictus.
Legacy
In a 2015 article by Artistdirect, the musicians Duff McKagan, Chino Moreno, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Max Cavalera and Jonathan Davis all praised the band for their significance and influence. Nirvana bassist, and co-founder, Krist Novoselic cited Faith No More as a band that "paved the way for Nirvana" in the late 1980s. Robert Plant, singer of Led Zeppelin, mentioned the then Chuck Mosley-led Faith No More as one of his current favorite bands in a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone. Plant and Faith No More subsequently toured together following The Real Things release. Scott Ian of Anthrax has also named Faith No More as one of his favorite bands.
Corey Taylor (frontman for both Slipknot and Stone Sour) told Loudwire in 2015 that if it wasn't for Faith No More, he "wouldn't be here today." While recovering from an attempted suicide at his grandmother's house, he saw the band perform "Epic" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again.
They were voted No. 52 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". The band is credited for inventing the alternative metal genre which began in the 1980s and that fuses metal with other genres, including alternative rock. Tim Grierson of About.com said the band "helped put alternative metal on the map." Faith No More has also been credited for influencing nu metal bands, such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Sevendust, primarily due to the popularity of "Epic", and other early material that featured rap and rock crossovers. Papa Roach vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, a self-confessed fan of the band, stated in a 2015 interview "They fused some of that hip-hop and rock together. They were one of the earliest bands to do that, and definitely pioneers to a whole genre. If you listen to Korn, if you listen to how the bass and the drums lock up, it's quite similar to how Faith No More was doing it in their early years." In a 2019 interview on the Australian channel Rage's Midnight Show, Tobias Forge, leader of the Swedish rock band Ghost, explained what the band meant to him by saying, "In the 90s there were a few bands that I liked a lot, and still like to this day, that are consecutively hard to niche. One band is Faith No More. Who knows what they play? No one knows really. It's a synth band? No. Is it a heavy metal band? No, not really. It's just a really, really good rock band."
Faith No More have been covered by prominent metal acts such as 36 Crazyfists, Apocalyptica, Atreyu, Between the Buried and Me, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Helloween, Ill Niño, Korn, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Redemption, Revocation, Sentenced, Slaves on Dope and Trail of Tears. In 2002, a tribute album titled Tribute of the Year (a reference to Faith No More's Album of the Year) was released by Underground Inc. It featured 30 Faith No More songs covered by mostly unknown independent hardcore punk, industrial and alternative metal acts.
The band and their 1989 single "Epic" have frequently been cited as an example of an '80s or '90s one-hit wonder. Flavorwire stated in 2014 "Although the band always had a loyal fan base and Patton remains an indie hero, they only cracked the Billboard Hot 100 once, with Epic." Others have noted that after "Epics success, the band still managed to remain highly popular in regions outside North America: including Australia, South America, Europe and the U.K. The band's original final record Album of the Year notably experienced high sales in countries such as Australia (where it went platinum), New Zealand and Germany, while being deemed a commercial failure in their native USA.
After the release of The Real Thing, a feud developed between Faith No More and fellow funk-influenced Californian group Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom they had previously played with on The Uplift Mofo Party Tour, while Chuck Mosley was still Faith No More's lead singer. Over the years, the feud has largely been fueled by the media, including TV personalities such as Greg Gutfeld. Despite this, various members of Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers appear to have remained on good terms since the initial controversy. Regarding the perceived conflict, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea stated in a mid-90s interview, "There was never any fight between us, that was a bunch of bullshit created by the media. I mean I think they're a good band. Maybe there was some things said between Anthony and the singer [Patton], but it all means nothing to me. Those guys in the band are nice people and there's no fight." At a 2014 show in Brooklyn, Red Hot Chili Peppers also notably covered a portion of the Chuck Mosley-era song "We Care a Lot".
Concert tours
1979–1984: Early shows
1985–1986: We Care a Lot Tour
1987–1988: Introduce Yourself Tour
1989–1991: The Real Thing Tour
1992–1993: Angel Dust Tour
1995: King for a Day Tour
1997–1998: Album of the Year Tour
2009–2012: The Second Coming Tour
2015: Soundwave Tour
2015: Sol Invictus Tour
2021-2022: Australian, New Zealand, European and US Tour
Band members
Current members
Mike Bordin – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Billy Gould – bass, backing vocals (1981–1998; 2009–present)
Roddy Bottum – keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1983–1998; 2009–present)
Mike Patton – lead vocals (1988–1998; 2009–present)
Jon Hudson – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–1998; 2009–present)
Awards and nominations
Brit Awards
|-
| 1991 || Faith No More || International Group ||
Grammy Awards
|-
| 1990 || "The Real Thing" || Best Metal Performance ||
|-
| 1991 || "Epic" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
|-
| 1993 || "Angel Dust" || Best Hard Rock Performance ||
Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Album ||
Metal Storm Awards
|-
| 2015 || Sol Invictus || Best Alternative Metal Album ||
MTV Video Music Awards
|-
| 1990 || "Epic" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video ||
|-
| 1991 || "Falling to Pieces" || Best Visual Effects in a Video ||
|-
| 1993 || "A Small Victory" || Best Art Direction in a Video ||
Discography
Studio albums
We Care a Lot (1985)
Introduce Yourself (1987)
The Real Thing (1989)
Angel Dust (1992)
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime (1995)
Album of the Year (1997)
Sol Invictus (2015)
See also
List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area
List of alternative metal artists
List of funk metal and funk rock bands
Notes
1. The song was recorded in 1988 and first appeared on 1989's The Real Thing, although it gained popularity after being released as a single in 1990.
References
Bibliography
.
Prato, Greg (2013). The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion. Createspace. .
Harte, Adrian (2018). Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More. Jawbone Press. .
External links
Faith No More in Concert
American alternative metal musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
American funk metal musical groups
American experimental rock groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups from San Francisco
Slash Records artists
Ipecac Recordings artists
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Mission District, San Francisco
Musical quintets
Alternative rock groups from California
| false |
[
"Moros Eros was an American alternative rock band from Marietta, Georgia. The band formed under the name In Vitro and released their debut EP I'm Dying But I Still Don't See Anything under that name, only to discover the name was already trademarked by a French band. The band renamed themselves Moros Eros (Moros is Greek for \"impending doom\" and Eros is the Greek god of love). The band signed to Victory Records. The band's debut album I Saw The Devil Last Night And Now The Sun Shines Bright was released on October 31, 2006, with the single \"Today Is The Day\" soon following. The band played at the 2007 South by Southwest. The group's most recent album, Jealous Me Was Killed By Curiosity, arrived in October 2006.\n\nAccording to AbsolutePunk.net on April 7, 2008, they had broken up.\n\nAfter the breakup\nOn Moros Eros' Myspace page, they have posted that they have moved on and started to begin their musical life in something new. Zach Tipton has started two bands: Young Coyotes and I am the Dot. Chris Firebaugh has joined a band named The Peppermint Confederacy. Bobby Theberge and Derek Schulz are recording and performing psychedelic doom metal under the name Day Old Man.\n\nLine-up\nZach Tipton: Lead vocals, Guitar, Lyrics\nDJ Schulz: Bass\nChris Firebaugh: Keyboards, Guitar\nBobby Theberge: Drums\n\nDiscography\nI'm Dying But I Still Don't See Anything EP (2006)\nI Saw The Devil Last Night And Now The Sun Shines Bright (Victory Records, 2006) – Produced by John Naclerio\nJealous Me Was Killed By Curiosity (Victory Records, 2007) – Produced by J. Clark\n\nSingles\n \"Today Is The Day\" (2006)\n \"On My Side\" (2007)\n \"Safety Net\" (2007)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Site\n Moros Eros' MySpace\n Moros Eros on Purevolume\n at Victory Records\n [ at Allmusic.com]\n Tour information\n at VictorME\n Moros Eros at SXSW\n\nAlternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)\nIndie rock musical groups from Georgia (U.S. state)\nMusical groups established in 2005\nMusical groups disestablished in 2008\nVictory Records artists",
"Jimmy Jimmy was an English short-lived pop band from Coventry, England, during the mid-1980s. They released one LP entitled Here in the Light in 1986 on CBS Records and a few singles including \"I Met Her in Paris\" and \"Silence\", which was a number 1 hit in Japan. The band members were James O'Neill and Jimmy Kemp.\n\nThe duo are still active today.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\nHere in the Light (1986), Epic/CBS\n\nSingles\n\"Love\" (1985), Epic\n\"I Met Her in Paris\" (1985), Epic\n\"Silence\" (1985), Epic\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish pop music duos\nEnglish new wave musical groups\nMusical groups from Coventry\nNew wave duos\nEpic Records artists"
] |
[
"Kate Tsui",
"2007-2008"
] |
C_3a38c1d298fd48bca3dc86d187aa10a4_0
|
Any great accomplishments during 2007
| 1 |
Did Kate Tsui have any great accomplishments during 2007?
|
Kate Tsui
|
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in the film, Eye in the Sky was praised by professional Hong Kong film critic, Sek Kei, as the best Hong Kong film in the first half of 2007. The film was subsequently entered into the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Shanghai International Film Festival. Through her performance in the film, Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer - Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008. The latter is a particularly outstanding achievement, for Tsui is, so far, the only individual to have received a Hong Kong Film Award, while being fully contracted by TVB, since Anita Yuen, who coincidentally is also a Miss Hong Kong pageant winner, won the same award back in 1993. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, had openly criticized the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, a film festival and awards ceremony held in Taiwan, for excluding Tsui and her performance in Eye in the Sky from a nomination in the Best New Performer category. He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung. CANNOTANSWER
|
In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky,
|
Kate Tsui Tsz-shan is a former Hong Kong actress, who is best known for her work with Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), and to an extent, for her film work and singing career. She also holds the Miss Hong Kong 2004 title. In December 2019, she announced her retirement from the entertainment industry with plans of moving to Europe.
Early life
Kate was born and raised in Hong Kong. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a homemaker.
Prior to winning her beauty queen title, Tsui had originally aspired to become a professional dancer. She had begun practicing ballet since the age of 4, but was forced to quit when she was 11, due to an injury on her right ankle. At the age of 14, she had begun to practice Jazz dance, Salsa, and Argentina Tango.
She was educated at Kiangsu-Chekiang College (Shatin) and eventually graduated from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Japanese, minoring in Spanish and marketing. After completing her degree, she had returned to Hong Kong and worked as a translator and project coordinator. She had previously worked at an engineering firm.
In 2004, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and was crowned the winner along with the titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss International Goodwill, and the Slimming Beauty Award. After the pageant, she signed with TVB and began her career as an actress.
TV career
Following guest roles in The Zone and When Rules Turn Loose in 2005, Tsui made her official TV debut in TVB series, La Femme Desperado in 2006. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, while critiquing Tsui's film performance, had said that Tsui had demonstrated strong charisma and had effectively held her own in La Femme Desperado, even while starring alongside veteran actresses, Sheren Tang and Melissa Ng. Her role as Ida in the series was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category, as well as the Favourite Female Character category, in the TVB Anniversary Awards 2006.
In 2007, Tsui had three TVB series released, including The Brink of Law, On the First Beat, and Steps. The roles cumulatively earned her the Most Improved Female Artist award from the TVB Anniversary Awards 2007. Her role in Steps also earned her nominations in the Best Actress category, as well Favourite Female Character category for the same awards show.
In 2008, Tsui took on her first villain role in Moonlight Resonance, and the role had earned her a Top 5 position in the Best Supporting Actress category of the TVB Anniversary Awards 2008. On the other hand, her leading role in Speech of Silence, in which she played a deaf character, had earned her a Top 10 position in the Best Actress category of the aforementioned awards show.
While Tsui's TV career quieted down during 2009 to 2010, due to her focus on her film career, 2011 proved to be fruitful for Tsui, with six of her TV dramas airing on TVB. Of the six roles, Paris Yiu from Lives of Omission had garnered the most attention. For the role, Tsui was awarded a My Favourite TVB Female TV Character award from the StarHub TVB Awards, nominations in the Best Actress and Favourite Female Character categories for the TVB Anniversary Awards 2011, as well as a nomination for Outstanding Actress in Television by the Ming Pao Anniversary Award.
Additionally, in 2011, with the high turnover rate in contracted TVB artists, TVB executive, Virginia Lok, appointed Tsui, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen, as the new Top 4 "Fa Dans" (a Cantonese term that is used for actresses with high popularity and status in TVB), with their predecessors being Flora Chan, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, and Jessica Hsuan.
2012 is arguably Tsui's peak year in her TV career. In Highs and Lows, Tsui portrays an extremely tragic character that struggled with substance abuse, gang rape, and eventually, drug dealing. Tsui described her experience of filming this drama as "being on an emotional roller coaster", to the extent that she did not wish to speak to anyone or pick up the phone after work. The producer of the drama, Lam Chi Wah, referred to Tsui's role in Highs and Lows as the greatest breakthrough in her career and applauded her for setting down her image as a beauty pageant winner to dive into such a complex character in the drama. Film director, Patrick Kong, also noted in his column that Tsui's acting has greatly matured in Highs and Lows, particularly in her portrayal of emotional scenes.
In 2014, Tsui took part in a TVB-produced micro film, A Time of Love, which consists of four individual stories, each with a separate theme. Tsui starred opposite Taiwanese actors, James Wen and Chris Wang, in the "sorrow" themed story. After the airing of the micro film, TVB received 39 individual viewer statements that commended Tsui of her outstanding performance in the micro film. Column writer, Ko Leung, of Macao Daily, also stated Tsui portrayed her character in the micro film perfectly and that Tsui's acting is comparable to that of Bai Baihe in The Stolen Years.
In 2015, Tsui's management contract with TVB ended. However, Tsui said that she is still on very good terms with TVB, and TVB has settled job arrangements for her up until February 2016. Despite having received several offers, Tsui stated that she will not finalize any management contract agreements until she has completed her jewelry design courses.
Film career
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer – Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008.
In 2009, Tsui starred in I Corrupt All Cops, a Hong Kong crime drama, directed by Wong Jing, who was impressed with the success of her debut performance in Eye in the Sky. Eason Chan, who plays Tsui's husband in the film, said Tsui's character is based on Shuang'er from The Deer and the Cauldron.
In 2010, Tsui starred in Wuxia film 14 Blades, alongside Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, and Wu Chun.
In 2011, Tsui reprised her role as Paris Yiu Ho Ho from the TVB series Lives of Omission in its film sequel, Turning Point 2, in which she starred opposite Francis Ng. Playing a character with a mental disorder in the film, Tsui said that collaborating with Ng was a valuable experience because Ng was extremely willing to teach and give her suggestions about her acting and performances. From working with Tsui, Ng had openly praised her for her acting potential.
In 2013, Tsui took part in a comedy film, I Love Hong Kong 2013. It is also the first film that veteran actress, Veronica Yip, has taken part in since her retirement in 1996. In the film, Tsui plays the younger version of Yip's character. The producer of the film, Eric Tsang, specifically praised Tsui for providing the best performance out of the entire cast, referring to it as a "Best Actress performance". In the same year, Tsui was also cast in Giddens Ko film, A Choo, alongside Ariel Lin and Kai Ko.
In 2015, Tsui was cast in thriller film, Knock Knock, Who's There?. The film is the first directorial effort by veteran actress, Carrie Ng. Tsui said that upon receiving the script, she had intended to reject the role because of the frightening content. However, Tsui eventually agreed to the role due to Ng's persistence and persuasion. With reference to collaborating with Tsui, Ng said that Tsui is a very professional and admirable actress.
Jewelry design career
In December 2015, Tsui launched a jewelry line with K.S. Sze & Sons Ltd. The collection is called "Rabbit-Duck Illusion". She indicated that her designs are inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept on the two different ways of seeing, using the ambiguous image of a "duckrabbit". She spoke of the concept behind her jewelry designs, "It's something that I like to remind myself of, that there are many situations in life that aren't worth splitting hairs over, and if I simply adjust the angle that I'm viewing things from, I can easily see a different perspective." In early 2016, Tsui found her own fine jewelry brand and online shop; katetsui.com
Further education
In 2015–2016, Tsui completed her Jewelry Design course at GIA and Colored Gem Professional Level II at the Gübelin Academy.
In June 2019, Tsui finished her master's degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She plans to further her studies overseas and pursue a PhD in psychology.
Filmography
Films
Television
Awards
2016
The most promising new entrepreneur of the year - katetsui.com
2015
Jade Solid Gold Music Awards Presentation 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2014
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Bounty Lady)
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – Everlasting Glow Award
Jade Solid Gold Second Round Music Awards 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2013
StarHub TVB Awards 2013– My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2013 – Most Glamorous Female Artist Award
Next TV Awards 2013 – Top 10 Artist (No. 10)
2012
TVB 45th Anniversary Awards 2012 – My Favourite Female Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Lives of Omission)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – Star of Perfect Poise Award
My AOD Awards 2012 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Highs and Lows)
2011
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – My Favourite Female TV Character (When Lanes Merge)
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – Most Energetic Award
My AOD Awards 2011 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Forensic Heroes III)
2010
2009 Ultimate Song Chart Awards (903) – Female Newcomer – Silver
2009 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation – Best Newcomer Artist – Gold
2009 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards – Best Prospective Newcomer Award – Gold
Sina Music Awards 2009 – My Favourite Female Newcomer 2009 – Bronze
Sprite Music Award () Ceremony 2009 – Most Outstanding Newcomer Award (Hong Kong Region)
IFPI Hong Kong CD Sales Presentation 2009 – Top Selling Hong Kong Female Newcomer
2009
Jade Solid Gold First Round Music Awards 2009 – Newcomer Impact Award
JSG Third Round Music Awards 2009 – Song Award: Hit Me
Metro Radio Hits Music Award Presentation 2009 – Metro Radio Hits King of New Singers Award 2009 (Female)
2008
27th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Performer Award
2007
TVB 40th Anniversary Awards 2007 – Most Improved Female Artist Award
Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007 – Best Newcomer – Gold Award
2005
Miss Chinese International 2005 – Miss Gorgeous
2004
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Winner
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss Photogenic
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss International Goodwill
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Slimming Beauty Award
Discography
Albums
Songs
References
External links
Official TVB Blog of Kate Tsui
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Miss Hong Kong
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | TVB Anniversary Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Metro Radio Hit Music Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Commercial Radio Song Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards
1979 births
Living people
21st-century Hong Kong women singers
Hong Kong film actresses
Hong Kong television actresses
Miss Hong Kong winners
TVB actors
University of California, Davis alumni
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
People from Boluo
21st-century Hong Kong actresses
Hakka musicians
| true |
[
"The University of Montana was founded in 1893.\n\nTimeline\n\nOscar John Craig (1895-1908)\n\nClyde Augustus Duniway (1908-1912)\n\nEdwin Boone Craighead (1912-1915)\n\nFrederick Charles Scheuch (Interim) (1915–1917)\n\nEdward Octavius Sisson (1917-1921)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nCharles Horace Clapp (1921–1935)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nGeorge Finlay Simmons (1936-1941)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nErnest Oscar Melby (1941-1945)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nJames Allen McCain (1945-1950)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nCarl McFarland (1951-1958)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nHarry Kenneth Newburn (1959-1963) \n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nRobert Johns (1963-1966) \n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nRobert T. Pantzer (1966-1974)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nRichard Charles Bowers (1974-1981) \n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nNeil S. Bucklew (1981-1986)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nJames Verch Koch (1986-1990)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nGeorge M. Dennison (1990–2010)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nRoyce Engstrom (2010-2016)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nSheila Sterns (Interim) (2017 - 2018)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nSeth Bodnar (2018-)\n\nPersonal and Accomplishments\n\nReferences",
"Lysimachus of Acarnania (Greek: Λυσίμαχος, Lysimachos) was one of the tutors of Alexander the Great. Though a man of very slender accomplishments, he ingratiated himself with the royal family by calling himself Phoenix, and Alexander Achilles, and Philip Peleus; and by this sort of flattery, according to Plutarch, he obtained the second place among the young prince's tutors.\n\nReferences\n \n\nPhilosophers and tutors of Alexander the Great\nAncient Acarnanians"
] |
[
"Kate Tsui",
"2007-2008",
"Any great accomplishments during 2007",
"In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky,"
] |
C_3a38c1d298fd48bca3dc86d187aa10a4_0
|
Was there any major movies that same year
| 2 |
Besides Eye in the Sky, were there any major movies that same year 2007?
|
Kate Tsui
|
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in the film, Eye in the Sky was praised by professional Hong Kong film critic, Sek Kei, as the best Hong Kong film in the first half of 2007. The film was subsequently entered into the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Shanghai International Film Festival. Through her performance in the film, Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer - Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008. The latter is a particularly outstanding achievement, for Tsui is, so far, the only individual to have received a Hong Kong Film Award, while being fully contracted by TVB, since Anita Yuen, who coincidentally is also a Miss Hong Kong pageant winner, won the same award back in 1993. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, had openly criticized the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, a film festival and awards ceremony held in Taiwan, for excluding Tsui and her performance in Eye in the Sky from a nomination in the Best New Performer category. He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Kate Tsui Tsz-shan is a former Hong Kong actress, who is best known for her work with Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), and to an extent, for her film work and singing career. She also holds the Miss Hong Kong 2004 title. In December 2019, she announced her retirement from the entertainment industry with plans of moving to Europe.
Early life
Kate was born and raised in Hong Kong. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a homemaker.
Prior to winning her beauty queen title, Tsui had originally aspired to become a professional dancer. She had begun practicing ballet since the age of 4, but was forced to quit when she was 11, due to an injury on her right ankle. At the age of 14, she had begun to practice Jazz dance, Salsa, and Argentina Tango.
She was educated at Kiangsu-Chekiang College (Shatin) and eventually graduated from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Japanese, minoring in Spanish and marketing. After completing her degree, she had returned to Hong Kong and worked as a translator and project coordinator. She had previously worked at an engineering firm.
In 2004, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and was crowned the winner along with the titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss International Goodwill, and the Slimming Beauty Award. After the pageant, she signed with TVB and began her career as an actress.
TV career
Following guest roles in The Zone and When Rules Turn Loose in 2005, Tsui made her official TV debut in TVB series, La Femme Desperado in 2006. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, while critiquing Tsui's film performance, had said that Tsui had demonstrated strong charisma and had effectively held her own in La Femme Desperado, even while starring alongside veteran actresses, Sheren Tang and Melissa Ng. Her role as Ida in the series was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category, as well as the Favourite Female Character category, in the TVB Anniversary Awards 2006.
In 2007, Tsui had three TVB series released, including The Brink of Law, On the First Beat, and Steps. The roles cumulatively earned her the Most Improved Female Artist award from the TVB Anniversary Awards 2007. Her role in Steps also earned her nominations in the Best Actress category, as well Favourite Female Character category for the same awards show.
In 2008, Tsui took on her first villain role in Moonlight Resonance, and the role had earned her a Top 5 position in the Best Supporting Actress category of the TVB Anniversary Awards 2008. On the other hand, her leading role in Speech of Silence, in which she played a deaf character, had earned her a Top 10 position in the Best Actress category of the aforementioned awards show.
While Tsui's TV career quieted down during 2009 to 2010, due to her focus on her film career, 2011 proved to be fruitful for Tsui, with six of her TV dramas airing on TVB. Of the six roles, Paris Yiu from Lives of Omission had garnered the most attention. For the role, Tsui was awarded a My Favourite TVB Female TV Character award from the StarHub TVB Awards, nominations in the Best Actress and Favourite Female Character categories for the TVB Anniversary Awards 2011, as well as a nomination for Outstanding Actress in Television by the Ming Pao Anniversary Award.
Additionally, in 2011, with the high turnover rate in contracted TVB artists, TVB executive, Virginia Lok, appointed Tsui, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen, as the new Top 4 "Fa Dans" (a Cantonese term that is used for actresses with high popularity and status in TVB), with their predecessors being Flora Chan, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, and Jessica Hsuan.
2012 is arguably Tsui's peak year in her TV career. In Highs and Lows, Tsui portrays an extremely tragic character that struggled with substance abuse, gang rape, and eventually, drug dealing. Tsui described her experience of filming this drama as "being on an emotional roller coaster", to the extent that she did not wish to speak to anyone or pick up the phone after work. The producer of the drama, Lam Chi Wah, referred to Tsui's role in Highs and Lows as the greatest breakthrough in her career and applauded her for setting down her image as a beauty pageant winner to dive into such a complex character in the drama. Film director, Patrick Kong, also noted in his column that Tsui's acting has greatly matured in Highs and Lows, particularly in her portrayal of emotional scenes.
In 2014, Tsui took part in a TVB-produced micro film, A Time of Love, which consists of four individual stories, each with a separate theme. Tsui starred opposite Taiwanese actors, James Wen and Chris Wang, in the "sorrow" themed story. After the airing of the micro film, TVB received 39 individual viewer statements that commended Tsui of her outstanding performance in the micro film. Column writer, Ko Leung, of Macao Daily, also stated Tsui portrayed her character in the micro film perfectly and that Tsui's acting is comparable to that of Bai Baihe in The Stolen Years.
In 2015, Tsui's management contract with TVB ended. However, Tsui said that she is still on very good terms with TVB, and TVB has settled job arrangements for her up until February 2016. Despite having received several offers, Tsui stated that she will not finalize any management contract agreements until she has completed her jewelry design courses.
Film career
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer – Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008.
In 2009, Tsui starred in I Corrupt All Cops, a Hong Kong crime drama, directed by Wong Jing, who was impressed with the success of her debut performance in Eye in the Sky. Eason Chan, who plays Tsui's husband in the film, said Tsui's character is based on Shuang'er from The Deer and the Cauldron.
In 2010, Tsui starred in Wuxia film 14 Blades, alongside Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, and Wu Chun.
In 2011, Tsui reprised her role as Paris Yiu Ho Ho from the TVB series Lives of Omission in its film sequel, Turning Point 2, in which she starred opposite Francis Ng. Playing a character with a mental disorder in the film, Tsui said that collaborating with Ng was a valuable experience because Ng was extremely willing to teach and give her suggestions about her acting and performances. From working with Tsui, Ng had openly praised her for her acting potential.
In 2013, Tsui took part in a comedy film, I Love Hong Kong 2013. It is also the first film that veteran actress, Veronica Yip, has taken part in since her retirement in 1996. In the film, Tsui plays the younger version of Yip's character. The producer of the film, Eric Tsang, specifically praised Tsui for providing the best performance out of the entire cast, referring to it as a "Best Actress performance". In the same year, Tsui was also cast in Giddens Ko film, A Choo, alongside Ariel Lin and Kai Ko.
In 2015, Tsui was cast in thriller film, Knock Knock, Who's There?. The film is the first directorial effort by veteran actress, Carrie Ng. Tsui said that upon receiving the script, she had intended to reject the role because of the frightening content. However, Tsui eventually agreed to the role due to Ng's persistence and persuasion. With reference to collaborating with Tsui, Ng said that Tsui is a very professional and admirable actress.
Jewelry design career
In December 2015, Tsui launched a jewelry line with K.S. Sze & Sons Ltd. The collection is called "Rabbit-Duck Illusion". She indicated that her designs are inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept on the two different ways of seeing, using the ambiguous image of a "duckrabbit". She spoke of the concept behind her jewelry designs, "It's something that I like to remind myself of, that there are many situations in life that aren't worth splitting hairs over, and if I simply adjust the angle that I'm viewing things from, I can easily see a different perspective." In early 2016, Tsui found her own fine jewelry brand and online shop; katetsui.com
Further education
In 2015–2016, Tsui completed her Jewelry Design course at GIA and Colored Gem Professional Level II at the Gübelin Academy.
In June 2019, Tsui finished her master's degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She plans to further her studies overseas and pursue a PhD in psychology.
Filmography
Films
Television
Awards
2016
The most promising new entrepreneur of the year - katetsui.com
2015
Jade Solid Gold Music Awards Presentation 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2014
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Bounty Lady)
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – Everlasting Glow Award
Jade Solid Gold Second Round Music Awards 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2013
StarHub TVB Awards 2013– My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2013 – Most Glamorous Female Artist Award
Next TV Awards 2013 – Top 10 Artist (No. 10)
2012
TVB 45th Anniversary Awards 2012 – My Favourite Female Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Lives of Omission)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – Star of Perfect Poise Award
My AOD Awards 2012 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Highs and Lows)
2011
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – My Favourite Female TV Character (When Lanes Merge)
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – Most Energetic Award
My AOD Awards 2011 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Forensic Heroes III)
2010
2009 Ultimate Song Chart Awards (903) – Female Newcomer – Silver
2009 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation – Best Newcomer Artist – Gold
2009 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards – Best Prospective Newcomer Award – Gold
Sina Music Awards 2009 – My Favourite Female Newcomer 2009 – Bronze
Sprite Music Award () Ceremony 2009 – Most Outstanding Newcomer Award (Hong Kong Region)
IFPI Hong Kong CD Sales Presentation 2009 – Top Selling Hong Kong Female Newcomer
2009
Jade Solid Gold First Round Music Awards 2009 – Newcomer Impact Award
JSG Third Round Music Awards 2009 – Song Award: Hit Me
Metro Radio Hits Music Award Presentation 2009 – Metro Radio Hits King of New Singers Award 2009 (Female)
2008
27th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Performer Award
2007
TVB 40th Anniversary Awards 2007 – Most Improved Female Artist Award
Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007 – Best Newcomer – Gold Award
2005
Miss Chinese International 2005 – Miss Gorgeous
2004
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Winner
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss Photogenic
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss International Goodwill
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Slimming Beauty Award
Discography
Albums
Songs
References
External links
Official TVB Blog of Kate Tsui
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Miss Hong Kong
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | TVB Anniversary Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Metro Radio Hit Music Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Commercial Radio Song Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards
1979 births
Living people
21st-century Hong Kong women singers
Hong Kong film actresses
Hong Kong television actresses
Miss Hong Kong winners
TVB actors
University of California, Davis alumni
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
People from Boluo
21st-century Hong Kong actresses
Hakka musicians
| false |
[
"True Movies 2 was a British free-to-air television channel that was owned by Moving Movies Ltd., majority owned by CSC Media Group (formerly Chart Show Channels). It was launched on 20 March 2006 and was a sister channel from True Movies which was launched on 29 April 2005. True Movies 2 initially broadcast for two hours in the early morning, from 4am to 6am by timesharing with Pop, a children's cartoon channel. The service was later extended to 24 hours a day.\n\nTrue Movies 2 was aimed especially at a female audience with its movies dedicated to true life dramas, which are mostly made-for-TV movies.\n\nReception of the channel did not require any special Sky or Freesat equipment nor subscription, any free to air receiver can pick up the channel.\nThe channel was temporarily rebranded from 19 May to 2 June 2014 as True Murder. From 30 September 2016, the channel was replaced by True Movies +1.\n\nEnglish-language television stations in the United Kingdom\nMovie channels in the United Kingdom\nCSC Media Group\nSony Pictures Television\nTelevision channels and stations established in 2006\nTelevision channels and stations disestablished in 2016",
"Sultana, also known as Sultana Razaaq, was one of the earliest film actresses from India and acted both in silent movies and later in talkie movies. She was a daughter of India’s first female film director, Fatima Begum. Zubeida (leading actress of India's first talkie film Alam Ara (1931)) was her younger sister.\n\nSultana was born in Surat, Gujarat in western India. She had two sisters, Zubeida and Shehzadi, both actresses. Their mother, Fatima Begum, claimed that her three daughters were fathered by Nawab Sidi Ibrahim Muhammad Yakut Khan III of Sachin State. However, there is no record of a marriage or any contract having taken place between the Nawab and Fatima Begum or of the Nawab having recognized any of her children as his own, a prerequisite for legal paternity in Muslim family law.\n\nCareer\nSultana was a popular actress in the silent movie era, usually cast in romantic roles. She started her career as actress in Veer Abhimanyu (1922) film and later performed in several silent films. Later, she also acted in talkie movies. When India was partitioned in 1947, she migrated to Pakistan with her husband, a wealthy man named Seth Razaaq. Her daughter, Jamila Razaaq, also became an actress with her encouragement. She produced a film in Pakistan, named Hum Ek Hain (1961), written by famous scriptwriter, Fayyaz Hashmi. The film was partly shot in colour, which was rare those days, but it failed miserably and Sultana stopped producing any films afterwards.\n\nSultana's daughter, Jamila Razaaq, married the well known Pakistani cricketer Waqar Hasan, who is the brother of filmmaker Iqbal Shehzad. He runs a business under the name National Foods at Karachi.\n\nFilmography\n\nSilent Movies\n\nTalkie Movies\n\nProducer\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Sultana brief biography\n List of films\n \n\nYear of birth missing\nYear of death missing\n20th-century Indian actresses\nActresses in Hindi cinema\nGujarati people\nIndian film actresses\nIndian Muslims\nIndian silent film actresses\nPakistani people of Gujarati descent\nPeople of British India"
] |
[
"Kate Tsui",
"2007-2008",
"Any great accomplishments during 2007",
"In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky,",
"Was there any major movies that same year",
"I don't know."
] |
C_3a38c1d298fd48bca3dc86d187aa10a4_0
|
Did she ever have any issues with her roles
| 3 |
Did Kate Tsui ever have any issues with her roles?
|
Kate Tsui
|
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in the film, Eye in the Sky was praised by professional Hong Kong film critic, Sek Kei, as the best Hong Kong film in the first half of 2007. The film was subsequently entered into the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Shanghai International Film Festival. Through her performance in the film, Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer - Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008. The latter is a particularly outstanding achievement, for Tsui is, so far, the only individual to have received a Hong Kong Film Award, while being fully contracted by TVB, since Anita Yuen, who coincidentally is also a Miss Hong Kong pageant winner, won the same award back in 1993. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, had openly criticized the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, a film festival and awards ceremony held in Taiwan, for excluding Tsui and her performance in Eye in the Sky from a nomination in the Best New Performer category. He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung. CANNOTANSWER
|
Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for.
|
Kate Tsui Tsz-shan is a former Hong Kong actress, who is best known for her work with Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), and to an extent, for her film work and singing career. She also holds the Miss Hong Kong 2004 title. In December 2019, she announced her retirement from the entertainment industry with plans of moving to Europe.
Early life
Kate was born and raised in Hong Kong. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a homemaker.
Prior to winning her beauty queen title, Tsui had originally aspired to become a professional dancer. She had begun practicing ballet since the age of 4, but was forced to quit when she was 11, due to an injury on her right ankle. At the age of 14, she had begun to practice Jazz dance, Salsa, and Argentina Tango.
She was educated at Kiangsu-Chekiang College (Shatin) and eventually graduated from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Japanese, minoring in Spanish and marketing. After completing her degree, she had returned to Hong Kong and worked as a translator and project coordinator. She had previously worked at an engineering firm.
In 2004, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and was crowned the winner along with the titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss International Goodwill, and the Slimming Beauty Award. After the pageant, she signed with TVB and began her career as an actress.
TV career
Following guest roles in The Zone and When Rules Turn Loose in 2005, Tsui made her official TV debut in TVB series, La Femme Desperado in 2006. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, while critiquing Tsui's film performance, had said that Tsui had demonstrated strong charisma and had effectively held her own in La Femme Desperado, even while starring alongside veteran actresses, Sheren Tang and Melissa Ng. Her role as Ida in the series was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category, as well as the Favourite Female Character category, in the TVB Anniversary Awards 2006.
In 2007, Tsui had three TVB series released, including The Brink of Law, On the First Beat, and Steps. The roles cumulatively earned her the Most Improved Female Artist award from the TVB Anniversary Awards 2007. Her role in Steps also earned her nominations in the Best Actress category, as well Favourite Female Character category for the same awards show.
In 2008, Tsui took on her first villain role in Moonlight Resonance, and the role had earned her a Top 5 position in the Best Supporting Actress category of the TVB Anniversary Awards 2008. On the other hand, her leading role in Speech of Silence, in which she played a deaf character, had earned her a Top 10 position in the Best Actress category of the aforementioned awards show.
While Tsui's TV career quieted down during 2009 to 2010, due to her focus on her film career, 2011 proved to be fruitful for Tsui, with six of her TV dramas airing on TVB. Of the six roles, Paris Yiu from Lives of Omission had garnered the most attention. For the role, Tsui was awarded a My Favourite TVB Female TV Character award from the StarHub TVB Awards, nominations in the Best Actress and Favourite Female Character categories for the TVB Anniversary Awards 2011, as well as a nomination for Outstanding Actress in Television by the Ming Pao Anniversary Award.
Additionally, in 2011, with the high turnover rate in contracted TVB artists, TVB executive, Virginia Lok, appointed Tsui, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen, as the new Top 4 "Fa Dans" (a Cantonese term that is used for actresses with high popularity and status in TVB), with their predecessors being Flora Chan, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, and Jessica Hsuan.
2012 is arguably Tsui's peak year in her TV career. In Highs and Lows, Tsui portrays an extremely tragic character that struggled with substance abuse, gang rape, and eventually, drug dealing. Tsui described her experience of filming this drama as "being on an emotional roller coaster", to the extent that she did not wish to speak to anyone or pick up the phone after work. The producer of the drama, Lam Chi Wah, referred to Tsui's role in Highs and Lows as the greatest breakthrough in her career and applauded her for setting down her image as a beauty pageant winner to dive into such a complex character in the drama. Film director, Patrick Kong, also noted in his column that Tsui's acting has greatly matured in Highs and Lows, particularly in her portrayal of emotional scenes.
In 2014, Tsui took part in a TVB-produced micro film, A Time of Love, which consists of four individual stories, each with a separate theme. Tsui starred opposite Taiwanese actors, James Wen and Chris Wang, in the "sorrow" themed story. After the airing of the micro film, TVB received 39 individual viewer statements that commended Tsui of her outstanding performance in the micro film. Column writer, Ko Leung, of Macao Daily, also stated Tsui portrayed her character in the micro film perfectly and that Tsui's acting is comparable to that of Bai Baihe in The Stolen Years.
In 2015, Tsui's management contract with TVB ended. However, Tsui said that she is still on very good terms with TVB, and TVB has settled job arrangements for her up until February 2016. Despite having received several offers, Tsui stated that she will not finalize any management contract agreements until she has completed her jewelry design courses.
Film career
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer – Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008.
In 2009, Tsui starred in I Corrupt All Cops, a Hong Kong crime drama, directed by Wong Jing, who was impressed with the success of her debut performance in Eye in the Sky. Eason Chan, who plays Tsui's husband in the film, said Tsui's character is based on Shuang'er from The Deer and the Cauldron.
In 2010, Tsui starred in Wuxia film 14 Blades, alongside Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, and Wu Chun.
In 2011, Tsui reprised her role as Paris Yiu Ho Ho from the TVB series Lives of Omission in its film sequel, Turning Point 2, in which she starred opposite Francis Ng. Playing a character with a mental disorder in the film, Tsui said that collaborating with Ng was a valuable experience because Ng was extremely willing to teach and give her suggestions about her acting and performances. From working with Tsui, Ng had openly praised her for her acting potential.
In 2013, Tsui took part in a comedy film, I Love Hong Kong 2013. It is also the first film that veteran actress, Veronica Yip, has taken part in since her retirement in 1996. In the film, Tsui plays the younger version of Yip's character. The producer of the film, Eric Tsang, specifically praised Tsui for providing the best performance out of the entire cast, referring to it as a "Best Actress performance". In the same year, Tsui was also cast in Giddens Ko film, A Choo, alongside Ariel Lin and Kai Ko.
In 2015, Tsui was cast in thriller film, Knock Knock, Who's There?. The film is the first directorial effort by veteran actress, Carrie Ng. Tsui said that upon receiving the script, she had intended to reject the role because of the frightening content. However, Tsui eventually agreed to the role due to Ng's persistence and persuasion. With reference to collaborating with Tsui, Ng said that Tsui is a very professional and admirable actress.
Jewelry design career
In December 2015, Tsui launched a jewelry line with K.S. Sze & Sons Ltd. The collection is called "Rabbit-Duck Illusion". She indicated that her designs are inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept on the two different ways of seeing, using the ambiguous image of a "duckrabbit". She spoke of the concept behind her jewelry designs, "It's something that I like to remind myself of, that there are many situations in life that aren't worth splitting hairs over, and if I simply adjust the angle that I'm viewing things from, I can easily see a different perspective." In early 2016, Tsui found her own fine jewelry brand and online shop; katetsui.com
Further education
In 2015–2016, Tsui completed her Jewelry Design course at GIA and Colored Gem Professional Level II at the Gübelin Academy.
In June 2019, Tsui finished her master's degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She plans to further her studies overseas and pursue a PhD in psychology.
Filmography
Films
Television
Awards
2016
The most promising new entrepreneur of the year - katetsui.com
2015
Jade Solid Gold Music Awards Presentation 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2014
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Bounty Lady)
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – Everlasting Glow Award
Jade Solid Gold Second Round Music Awards 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2013
StarHub TVB Awards 2013– My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2013 – Most Glamorous Female Artist Award
Next TV Awards 2013 – Top 10 Artist (No. 10)
2012
TVB 45th Anniversary Awards 2012 – My Favourite Female Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Lives of Omission)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – Star of Perfect Poise Award
My AOD Awards 2012 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Highs and Lows)
2011
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – My Favourite Female TV Character (When Lanes Merge)
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – Most Energetic Award
My AOD Awards 2011 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Forensic Heroes III)
2010
2009 Ultimate Song Chart Awards (903) – Female Newcomer – Silver
2009 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation – Best Newcomer Artist – Gold
2009 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards – Best Prospective Newcomer Award – Gold
Sina Music Awards 2009 – My Favourite Female Newcomer 2009 – Bronze
Sprite Music Award () Ceremony 2009 – Most Outstanding Newcomer Award (Hong Kong Region)
IFPI Hong Kong CD Sales Presentation 2009 – Top Selling Hong Kong Female Newcomer
2009
Jade Solid Gold First Round Music Awards 2009 – Newcomer Impact Award
JSG Third Round Music Awards 2009 – Song Award: Hit Me
Metro Radio Hits Music Award Presentation 2009 – Metro Radio Hits King of New Singers Award 2009 (Female)
2008
27th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Performer Award
2007
TVB 40th Anniversary Awards 2007 – Most Improved Female Artist Award
Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007 – Best Newcomer – Gold Award
2005
Miss Chinese International 2005 – Miss Gorgeous
2004
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Winner
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss Photogenic
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss International Goodwill
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Slimming Beauty Award
Discography
Albums
Songs
References
External links
Official TVB Blog of Kate Tsui
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Miss Hong Kong
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | TVB Anniversary Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Metro Radio Hit Music Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Commercial Radio Song Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards
1979 births
Living people
21st-century Hong Kong women singers
Hong Kong film actresses
Hong Kong television actresses
Miss Hong Kong winners
TVB actors
University of California, Davis alumni
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
People from Boluo
21st-century Hong Kong actresses
Hakka musicians
| false |
[
"Ksenija Marinković (born 18 April 1966) is a Croatian film, television and theatre actress.\n\nBiography \nKsenija Marinković was born in Virovitica in 1966 where she finished high school. Ever since she was eight until entering the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, she was involved in the Virovitica theatre as an amateur actress. As a student of the Academy she started to collaborate with the Gavella Drama Theatre and the Histrioni troupe. After graduating from the Academy she spent one year with the Teatar u gostima and has been employed with the ZKM theatre in Zagreb since 1989 where she created some of her most important roles. Some of her significant roles were created outside her theatre and she also starred in TV and feature films.\n\nFilmography\n\nMovie roles\n\nTelevision roles\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1966 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Virovitica\nCroatian actresses\nCroatian film actresses\nCroatian stage actresses\nGolden Arena winners",
"Kandala Venkata Pushpavalli Tayaramma (3 January 1926 – 28 April 1991), better known as Pushpavalli, was an Indian actress who worked in Telugu films. Her film work includes title roles in Miss Malini (1947), and the Telugu film Satyabhama..\n\nInitially married to I V Rangachari, Pushpavalli became the lover of the actor Gemini Ganeshan. She had two daughters with Ganeshan, Rekha and Radha. Her elder daughter is the Hindi actress Rekha.\n\nBiography\nPushpavalli was born into the Kandala family to Kandala Ramakotamma and Kandala Thathachary in Pentapadu village of West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh (at that time in Madras Presidency). She entered the film industry as a child actress, credited as Pushpavalli Tayaramma, with a small role as young Sita in the film Sampoorna Ramayanam (1936, 8 August), shot in Rajamundry in the first Studio in Andhra Region, Durga Cinitone, which was released when she was only nine years old. She was paid Rs 300/- for a three-day shoot, which was a princely sum in those days. This was followed by a few more roles as child star, and Pushpavalli's income became important to her family. Due to these preoccupations, she spent significant time in film shooting, she missed out on schooling and had only a rudimentary education. She married a Lawyer named I V Rangachari in about 1940. However, the marriage did not last (circumstances are not known) and they began living apart from 1946.\n\nPushpavalli graduated to doing adult roles with hardly any break from playing a child star. This was a necessity, because acting was the source of income for the family, and she could not afford to take a break. However, this continuity may have affected her acting career, and she was never really accepted as a leading lady. She did only a few roles as heroine, and in between did many films where she played the second lead. In all, she acted in around 20-25 Telugu and Tamil films (including child roles) and met with only moderate success. She was never a top-level star, nor did she receive any critical acclaim for her acting talents. Perhaps her biggest hit was the Telugu film Bala Nagamma (1942), where she played an important supporting role. Her 1947 film Miss Malini, where she played the lead role, received great critical acclaim from the intelligentsia, but flopped at the box office.\n\nMiss Malini (1947) also marked the acting debut of Gemini Ganesan, her future consort. Pushpavalli next worked with Ganesan in the Tamil film Chakradhari (1948), where she was the heroine, and he played a small role. After this point, the situation reversed; Ganesan became a huge star and Pushpavalli started getting only supporting roles, her films as heroine having mostly flopped. She did a few more films with Ganesan, the two got along very well together, and entered into a relationship, despite the fact that both of them were married to other people (Ganesan had married his first wife Alamelu, known informally as Bobji, at a very young age and would remain married to Bobji until his death).\n\nPushpavalli and Ganesan had two daughters together in quick succession. The eldest of them is the Bollywood actress Rekha (born in 1954) and the younger is Radha, who briefly worked in Tamil movies before marrying and moving to the United States. Ganesan did not acknowledge paternity of the girls for several years, and was only an occasional visitor to Pushpavalli's house. The relationship deteriorated quickly and the couple was soon estranged. As early as 1955, before the birth of Radha, Ganesan had secretly married the famous actress Savitri, and that relationship was publicly acknowledged as a valid marriage. This was possible because until 1956, it was legally permissible for a Hindu man to have more than one wife. Since Savitri was unmarried, it was possible for her to become Ganesan's legal second wife. Since Pushpavalli was still legally married to Rangachari (divorce was not available to Hindus at all until 1956), that option was not available to her and it was impossible for her to marry anyone else. Some sources say Pushpavalli and Ganesan were married in Tirupathi.\n\nAfter being estranged from Ganesan, Pushpavalli did a few more films, mostly minor roles, including a couple of Hindi films made by her old associates in the south Indian film industry. She did these roles in order to support her daughters, whom she brought up single-handedly in a very frugal way. The fact that Rekha became so successful in films was a source of great satisfaction to her, as was the fact that her second daughter, Radha settled very respectably in marriage to Syed Usman, a former Bollywood model in 1976. They reside in USA.\n\nPushpavalli died in 1991 of ailments associated with diabetes in Madras. She was survived by her 5 children including a son Babji, and daughters Rama, Dhanalakshmi and two daughters, Rekha and Radha by Gemini Ganesan.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nActresses in Tamil cinema\nActresses in Telugu cinema\nIndian film actresses\n20th-century Indian actresses\nPlace of birth missing\n1926 births\nPlace of death missing\n1991 deaths\nActresses from Andhra Pradesh\nPeople from West Godavari district"
] |
[
"Kate Tsui",
"2007-2008",
"Any great accomplishments during 2007",
"In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky,",
"Was there any major movies that same year",
"I don't know.",
"Did she ever have any issues with her roles",
"Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for."
] |
C_3a38c1d298fd48bca3dc86d187aa10a4_0
|
Did her cast members have any words to say about her
| 4 |
Did Kate Tsui's cast members have any words to say about her?
|
Kate Tsui
|
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in the film, Eye in the Sky was praised by professional Hong Kong film critic, Sek Kei, as the best Hong Kong film in the first half of 2007. The film was subsequently entered into the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Shanghai International Film Festival. Through her performance in the film, Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer - Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008. The latter is a particularly outstanding achievement, for Tsui is, so far, the only individual to have received a Hong Kong Film Award, while being fully contracted by TVB, since Anita Yuen, who coincidentally is also a Miss Hong Kong pageant winner, won the same award back in 1993. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, had openly criticized the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, a film festival and awards ceremony held in Taiwan, for excluding Tsui and her performance in Eye in the Sky from a nomination in the Best New Performer category. He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung. CANNOTANSWER
|
He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung.
|
Kate Tsui Tsz-shan is a former Hong Kong actress, who is best known for her work with Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), and to an extent, for her film work and singing career. She also holds the Miss Hong Kong 2004 title. In December 2019, she announced her retirement from the entertainment industry with plans of moving to Europe.
Early life
Kate was born and raised in Hong Kong. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a homemaker.
Prior to winning her beauty queen title, Tsui had originally aspired to become a professional dancer. She had begun practicing ballet since the age of 4, but was forced to quit when she was 11, due to an injury on her right ankle. At the age of 14, she had begun to practice Jazz dance, Salsa, and Argentina Tango.
She was educated at Kiangsu-Chekiang College (Shatin) and eventually graduated from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Japanese, minoring in Spanish and marketing. After completing her degree, she had returned to Hong Kong and worked as a translator and project coordinator. She had previously worked at an engineering firm.
In 2004, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and was crowned the winner along with the titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss International Goodwill, and the Slimming Beauty Award. After the pageant, she signed with TVB and began her career as an actress.
TV career
Following guest roles in The Zone and When Rules Turn Loose in 2005, Tsui made her official TV debut in TVB series, La Femme Desperado in 2006. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, while critiquing Tsui's film performance, had said that Tsui had demonstrated strong charisma and had effectively held her own in La Femme Desperado, even while starring alongside veteran actresses, Sheren Tang and Melissa Ng. Her role as Ida in the series was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category, as well as the Favourite Female Character category, in the TVB Anniversary Awards 2006.
In 2007, Tsui had three TVB series released, including The Brink of Law, On the First Beat, and Steps. The roles cumulatively earned her the Most Improved Female Artist award from the TVB Anniversary Awards 2007. Her role in Steps also earned her nominations in the Best Actress category, as well Favourite Female Character category for the same awards show.
In 2008, Tsui took on her first villain role in Moonlight Resonance, and the role had earned her a Top 5 position in the Best Supporting Actress category of the TVB Anniversary Awards 2008. On the other hand, her leading role in Speech of Silence, in which she played a deaf character, had earned her a Top 10 position in the Best Actress category of the aforementioned awards show.
While Tsui's TV career quieted down during 2009 to 2010, due to her focus on her film career, 2011 proved to be fruitful for Tsui, with six of her TV dramas airing on TVB. Of the six roles, Paris Yiu from Lives of Omission had garnered the most attention. For the role, Tsui was awarded a My Favourite TVB Female TV Character award from the StarHub TVB Awards, nominations in the Best Actress and Favourite Female Character categories for the TVB Anniversary Awards 2011, as well as a nomination for Outstanding Actress in Television by the Ming Pao Anniversary Award.
Additionally, in 2011, with the high turnover rate in contracted TVB artists, TVB executive, Virginia Lok, appointed Tsui, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen, as the new Top 4 "Fa Dans" (a Cantonese term that is used for actresses with high popularity and status in TVB), with their predecessors being Flora Chan, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, and Jessica Hsuan.
2012 is arguably Tsui's peak year in her TV career. In Highs and Lows, Tsui portrays an extremely tragic character that struggled with substance abuse, gang rape, and eventually, drug dealing. Tsui described her experience of filming this drama as "being on an emotional roller coaster", to the extent that she did not wish to speak to anyone or pick up the phone after work. The producer of the drama, Lam Chi Wah, referred to Tsui's role in Highs and Lows as the greatest breakthrough in her career and applauded her for setting down her image as a beauty pageant winner to dive into such a complex character in the drama. Film director, Patrick Kong, also noted in his column that Tsui's acting has greatly matured in Highs and Lows, particularly in her portrayal of emotional scenes.
In 2014, Tsui took part in a TVB-produced micro film, A Time of Love, which consists of four individual stories, each with a separate theme. Tsui starred opposite Taiwanese actors, James Wen and Chris Wang, in the "sorrow" themed story. After the airing of the micro film, TVB received 39 individual viewer statements that commended Tsui of her outstanding performance in the micro film. Column writer, Ko Leung, of Macao Daily, also stated Tsui portrayed her character in the micro film perfectly and that Tsui's acting is comparable to that of Bai Baihe in The Stolen Years.
In 2015, Tsui's management contract with TVB ended. However, Tsui said that she is still on very good terms with TVB, and TVB has settled job arrangements for her up until February 2016. Despite having received several offers, Tsui stated that she will not finalize any management contract agreements until she has completed her jewelry design courses.
Film career
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer – Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008.
In 2009, Tsui starred in I Corrupt All Cops, a Hong Kong crime drama, directed by Wong Jing, who was impressed with the success of her debut performance in Eye in the Sky. Eason Chan, who plays Tsui's husband in the film, said Tsui's character is based on Shuang'er from The Deer and the Cauldron.
In 2010, Tsui starred in Wuxia film 14 Blades, alongside Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, and Wu Chun.
In 2011, Tsui reprised her role as Paris Yiu Ho Ho from the TVB series Lives of Omission in its film sequel, Turning Point 2, in which she starred opposite Francis Ng. Playing a character with a mental disorder in the film, Tsui said that collaborating with Ng was a valuable experience because Ng was extremely willing to teach and give her suggestions about her acting and performances. From working with Tsui, Ng had openly praised her for her acting potential.
In 2013, Tsui took part in a comedy film, I Love Hong Kong 2013. It is also the first film that veteran actress, Veronica Yip, has taken part in since her retirement in 1996. In the film, Tsui plays the younger version of Yip's character. The producer of the film, Eric Tsang, specifically praised Tsui for providing the best performance out of the entire cast, referring to it as a "Best Actress performance". In the same year, Tsui was also cast in Giddens Ko film, A Choo, alongside Ariel Lin and Kai Ko.
In 2015, Tsui was cast in thriller film, Knock Knock, Who's There?. The film is the first directorial effort by veteran actress, Carrie Ng. Tsui said that upon receiving the script, she had intended to reject the role because of the frightening content. However, Tsui eventually agreed to the role due to Ng's persistence and persuasion. With reference to collaborating with Tsui, Ng said that Tsui is a very professional and admirable actress.
Jewelry design career
In December 2015, Tsui launched a jewelry line with K.S. Sze & Sons Ltd. The collection is called "Rabbit-Duck Illusion". She indicated that her designs are inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept on the two different ways of seeing, using the ambiguous image of a "duckrabbit". She spoke of the concept behind her jewelry designs, "It's something that I like to remind myself of, that there are many situations in life that aren't worth splitting hairs over, and if I simply adjust the angle that I'm viewing things from, I can easily see a different perspective." In early 2016, Tsui found her own fine jewelry brand and online shop; katetsui.com
Further education
In 2015–2016, Tsui completed her Jewelry Design course at GIA and Colored Gem Professional Level II at the Gübelin Academy.
In June 2019, Tsui finished her master's degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She plans to further her studies overseas and pursue a PhD in psychology.
Filmography
Films
Television
Awards
2016
The most promising new entrepreneur of the year - katetsui.com
2015
Jade Solid Gold Music Awards Presentation 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2014
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Bounty Lady)
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – Everlasting Glow Award
Jade Solid Gold Second Round Music Awards 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2013
StarHub TVB Awards 2013– My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2013 – Most Glamorous Female Artist Award
Next TV Awards 2013 – Top 10 Artist (No. 10)
2012
TVB 45th Anniversary Awards 2012 – My Favourite Female Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Lives of Omission)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – Star of Perfect Poise Award
My AOD Awards 2012 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Highs and Lows)
2011
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – My Favourite Female TV Character (When Lanes Merge)
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – Most Energetic Award
My AOD Awards 2011 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Forensic Heroes III)
2010
2009 Ultimate Song Chart Awards (903) – Female Newcomer – Silver
2009 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation – Best Newcomer Artist – Gold
2009 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards – Best Prospective Newcomer Award – Gold
Sina Music Awards 2009 – My Favourite Female Newcomer 2009 – Bronze
Sprite Music Award () Ceremony 2009 – Most Outstanding Newcomer Award (Hong Kong Region)
IFPI Hong Kong CD Sales Presentation 2009 – Top Selling Hong Kong Female Newcomer
2009
Jade Solid Gold First Round Music Awards 2009 – Newcomer Impact Award
JSG Third Round Music Awards 2009 – Song Award: Hit Me
Metro Radio Hits Music Award Presentation 2009 – Metro Radio Hits King of New Singers Award 2009 (Female)
2008
27th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Performer Award
2007
TVB 40th Anniversary Awards 2007 – Most Improved Female Artist Award
Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007 – Best Newcomer – Gold Award
2005
Miss Chinese International 2005 – Miss Gorgeous
2004
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Winner
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss Photogenic
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss International Goodwill
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Slimming Beauty Award
Discography
Albums
Songs
References
External links
Official TVB Blog of Kate Tsui
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Miss Hong Kong
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | TVB Anniversary Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Metro Radio Hit Music Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Commercial Radio Song Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards
1979 births
Living people
21st-century Hong Kong women singers
Hong Kong film actresses
Hong Kong television actresses
Miss Hong Kong winners
TVB actors
University of California, Davis alumni
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
People from Boluo
21st-century Hong Kong actresses
Hakka musicians
| false |
[
"A Siege Diary () is a 2020 Russian drama film directed by Andrey Zaytsev. The film is the winner of the Moscow International Film Festival.\n\nPlot \nThe film takes place at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War in snow-covered Leningrad. A young woman named Olga buried her husband, she thinks that she too did not have long to live and she went to her father to say goodbye to him.\n\nCast\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n2020 films\n2020 drama films\n2020s Russian-language films\nRussian films",
"Meri Beti Sunny Leone Banna Chaahti Hai () is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language short film which was directed and produced by Ram Gopal Verma. The film stars Naina Ganguly, Makrand Deshpande and Divya Jagdale.\n\nRam Gopal Verma made his debut in the short film arena with this film. This short film is the debut short film of Naina Ganguly too in her lead role. It was released on 5 June 2017 on YouTube.\n\nPlot\nThis film depicted a living room conversation of a family where the family's daughter (Naina Ganguly) told her father (Makrand Deshpande) and mother (Divya Jagdale) about her intention to become a porn star like Sunny Leone. Later, they went through an argument over sexuality, the porn business, women's bodies and society. At the end of their argument the daughter did not change her intention. She told her mother that if she listened her words carefully and understood those a little bit, she would be happy as her daughter wanted to become a porn star like Sunny Leone. She also added that if she fully understood her words she would regret for not becoming a porn star like Sunny Leone.\n\nCast\n Naina Ganguly as daughter\n Makrand Deshpande as father\n Divya Jagdale as mother\n\nRelease\nMeri Beti Sunny Leone Banna Chaahti Hai was released on YouTube on 5 June 2017.\n\nReception\nMeri Beti Sunny Leone Banna Chaahti Hai crossed 1.5 million views on YouTube in 15 hours. Daily News and Analysis criticised the film as it is not a usual matter to say the word \"porn star\" in front of parents on a middle-class family let alone saying intention to become a porn star. It also criticised the acting of Naina Ganguly. In spite of criticism it praised the stigma and double standard attached to a woman's sexuality, her suppression under the name of \"what will people say\" and demonising her right to choose which was depicted in the conversation. In the review of Firstpost it described that the film reflected \"shameless opportunism\". It also criticised the conversation of the film.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nIndian short films\n2017 short films\nFilms directed by Ram Gopal Varma\nHindi-language films\nIndian films"
] |
[
"Kate Tsui",
"2007-2008",
"Any great accomplishments during 2007",
"In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky,",
"Was there any major movies that same year",
"I don't know.",
"Did she ever have any issues with her roles",
"Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for.",
"Did her cast members have any words to say about her",
"He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung."
] |
C_3a38c1d298fd48bca3dc86d187aa10a4_0
|
Was there ever a off screen romance
| 5 |
Was there ever a off screen romance involving Kate Tsui?
|
Kate Tsui
|
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in the film, Eye in the Sky was praised by professional Hong Kong film critic, Sek Kei, as the best Hong Kong film in the first half of 2007. The film was subsequently entered into the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Shanghai International Film Festival. Through her performance in the film, Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer - Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008. The latter is a particularly outstanding achievement, for Tsui is, so far, the only individual to have received a Hong Kong Film Award, while being fully contracted by TVB, since Anita Yuen, who coincidentally is also a Miss Hong Kong pageant winner, won the same award back in 1993. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, had openly criticized the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, a film festival and awards ceremony held in Taiwan, for excluding Tsui and her performance in Eye in the Sky from a nomination in the Best New Performer category. He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Kate Tsui Tsz-shan is a former Hong Kong actress, who is best known for her work with Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), and to an extent, for her film work and singing career. She also holds the Miss Hong Kong 2004 title. In December 2019, she announced her retirement from the entertainment industry with plans of moving to Europe.
Early life
Kate was born and raised in Hong Kong. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a homemaker.
Prior to winning her beauty queen title, Tsui had originally aspired to become a professional dancer. She had begun practicing ballet since the age of 4, but was forced to quit when she was 11, due to an injury on her right ankle. At the age of 14, she had begun to practice Jazz dance, Salsa, and Argentina Tango.
She was educated at Kiangsu-Chekiang College (Shatin) and eventually graduated from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Japanese, minoring in Spanish and marketing. After completing her degree, she had returned to Hong Kong and worked as a translator and project coordinator. She had previously worked at an engineering firm.
In 2004, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and was crowned the winner along with the titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss International Goodwill, and the Slimming Beauty Award. After the pageant, she signed with TVB and began her career as an actress.
TV career
Following guest roles in The Zone and When Rules Turn Loose in 2005, Tsui made her official TV debut in TVB series, La Femme Desperado in 2006. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, while critiquing Tsui's film performance, had said that Tsui had demonstrated strong charisma and had effectively held her own in La Femme Desperado, even while starring alongside veteran actresses, Sheren Tang and Melissa Ng. Her role as Ida in the series was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category, as well as the Favourite Female Character category, in the TVB Anniversary Awards 2006.
In 2007, Tsui had three TVB series released, including The Brink of Law, On the First Beat, and Steps. The roles cumulatively earned her the Most Improved Female Artist award from the TVB Anniversary Awards 2007. Her role in Steps also earned her nominations in the Best Actress category, as well Favourite Female Character category for the same awards show.
In 2008, Tsui took on her first villain role in Moonlight Resonance, and the role had earned her a Top 5 position in the Best Supporting Actress category of the TVB Anniversary Awards 2008. On the other hand, her leading role in Speech of Silence, in which she played a deaf character, had earned her a Top 10 position in the Best Actress category of the aforementioned awards show.
While Tsui's TV career quieted down during 2009 to 2010, due to her focus on her film career, 2011 proved to be fruitful for Tsui, with six of her TV dramas airing on TVB. Of the six roles, Paris Yiu from Lives of Omission had garnered the most attention. For the role, Tsui was awarded a My Favourite TVB Female TV Character award from the StarHub TVB Awards, nominations in the Best Actress and Favourite Female Character categories for the TVB Anniversary Awards 2011, as well as a nomination for Outstanding Actress in Television by the Ming Pao Anniversary Award.
Additionally, in 2011, with the high turnover rate in contracted TVB artists, TVB executive, Virginia Lok, appointed Tsui, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen, as the new Top 4 "Fa Dans" (a Cantonese term that is used for actresses with high popularity and status in TVB), with their predecessors being Flora Chan, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, and Jessica Hsuan.
2012 is arguably Tsui's peak year in her TV career. In Highs and Lows, Tsui portrays an extremely tragic character that struggled with substance abuse, gang rape, and eventually, drug dealing. Tsui described her experience of filming this drama as "being on an emotional roller coaster", to the extent that she did not wish to speak to anyone or pick up the phone after work. The producer of the drama, Lam Chi Wah, referred to Tsui's role in Highs and Lows as the greatest breakthrough in her career and applauded her for setting down her image as a beauty pageant winner to dive into such a complex character in the drama. Film director, Patrick Kong, also noted in his column that Tsui's acting has greatly matured in Highs and Lows, particularly in her portrayal of emotional scenes.
In 2014, Tsui took part in a TVB-produced micro film, A Time of Love, which consists of four individual stories, each with a separate theme. Tsui starred opposite Taiwanese actors, James Wen and Chris Wang, in the "sorrow" themed story. After the airing of the micro film, TVB received 39 individual viewer statements that commended Tsui of her outstanding performance in the micro film. Column writer, Ko Leung, of Macao Daily, also stated Tsui portrayed her character in the micro film perfectly and that Tsui's acting is comparable to that of Bai Baihe in The Stolen Years.
In 2015, Tsui's management contract with TVB ended. However, Tsui said that she is still on very good terms with TVB, and TVB has settled job arrangements for her up until February 2016. Despite having received several offers, Tsui stated that she will not finalize any management contract agreements until she has completed her jewelry design courses.
Film career
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer – Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008.
In 2009, Tsui starred in I Corrupt All Cops, a Hong Kong crime drama, directed by Wong Jing, who was impressed with the success of her debut performance in Eye in the Sky. Eason Chan, who plays Tsui's husband in the film, said Tsui's character is based on Shuang'er from The Deer and the Cauldron.
In 2010, Tsui starred in Wuxia film 14 Blades, alongside Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, and Wu Chun.
In 2011, Tsui reprised her role as Paris Yiu Ho Ho from the TVB series Lives of Omission in its film sequel, Turning Point 2, in which she starred opposite Francis Ng. Playing a character with a mental disorder in the film, Tsui said that collaborating with Ng was a valuable experience because Ng was extremely willing to teach and give her suggestions about her acting and performances. From working with Tsui, Ng had openly praised her for her acting potential.
In 2013, Tsui took part in a comedy film, I Love Hong Kong 2013. It is also the first film that veteran actress, Veronica Yip, has taken part in since her retirement in 1996. In the film, Tsui plays the younger version of Yip's character. The producer of the film, Eric Tsang, specifically praised Tsui for providing the best performance out of the entire cast, referring to it as a "Best Actress performance". In the same year, Tsui was also cast in Giddens Ko film, A Choo, alongside Ariel Lin and Kai Ko.
In 2015, Tsui was cast in thriller film, Knock Knock, Who's There?. The film is the first directorial effort by veteran actress, Carrie Ng. Tsui said that upon receiving the script, she had intended to reject the role because of the frightening content. However, Tsui eventually agreed to the role due to Ng's persistence and persuasion. With reference to collaborating with Tsui, Ng said that Tsui is a very professional and admirable actress.
Jewelry design career
In December 2015, Tsui launched a jewelry line with K.S. Sze & Sons Ltd. The collection is called "Rabbit-Duck Illusion". She indicated that her designs are inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept on the two different ways of seeing, using the ambiguous image of a "duckrabbit". She spoke of the concept behind her jewelry designs, "It's something that I like to remind myself of, that there are many situations in life that aren't worth splitting hairs over, and if I simply adjust the angle that I'm viewing things from, I can easily see a different perspective." In early 2016, Tsui found her own fine jewelry brand and online shop; katetsui.com
Further education
In 2015–2016, Tsui completed her Jewelry Design course at GIA and Colored Gem Professional Level II at the Gübelin Academy.
In June 2019, Tsui finished her master's degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She plans to further her studies overseas and pursue a PhD in psychology.
Filmography
Films
Television
Awards
2016
The most promising new entrepreneur of the year - katetsui.com
2015
Jade Solid Gold Music Awards Presentation 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2014
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Bounty Lady)
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – Everlasting Glow Award
Jade Solid Gold Second Round Music Awards 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2013
StarHub TVB Awards 2013– My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2013 – Most Glamorous Female Artist Award
Next TV Awards 2013 – Top 10 Artist (No. 10)
2012
TVB 45th Anniversary Awards 2012 – My Favourite Female Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Lives of Omission)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – Star of Perfect Poise Award
My AOD Awards 2012 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Highs and Lows)
2011
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – My Favourite Female TV Character (When Lanes Merge)
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – Most Energetic Award
My AOD Awards 2011 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Forensic Heroes III)
2010
2009 Ultimate Song Chart Awards (903) – Female Newcomer – Silver
2009 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation – Best Newcomer Artist – Gold
2009 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards – Best Prospective Newcomer Award – Gold
Sina Music Awards 2009 – My Favourite Female Newcomer 2009 – Bronze
Sprite Music Award () Ceremony 2009 – Most Outstanding Newcomer Award (Hong Kong Region)
IFPI Hong Kong CD Sales Presentation 2009 – Top Selling Hong Kong Female Newcomer
2009
Jade Solid Gold First Round Music Awards 2009 – Newcomer Impact Award
JSG Third Round Music Awards 2009 – Song Award: Hit Me
Metro Radio Hits Music Award Presentation 2009 – Metro Radio Hits King of New Singers Award 2009 (Female)
2008
27th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Performer Award
2007
TVB 40th Anniversary Awards 2007 – Most Improved Female Artist Award
Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007 – Best Newcomer – Gold Award
2005
Miss Chinese International 2005 – Miss Gorgeous
2004
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Winner
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss Photogenic
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss International Goodwill
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Slimming Beauty Award
Discography
Albums
Songs
References
External links
Official TVB Blog of Kate Tsui
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Miss Hong Kong
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | TVB Anniversary Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Metro Radio Hit Music Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Commercial Radio Song Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards
1979 births
Living people
21st-century Hong Kong women singers
Hong Kong film actresses
Hong Kong television actresses
Miss Hong Kong winners
TVB actors
University of California, Davis alumni
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
People from Boluo
21st-century Hong Kong actresses
Hakka musicians
| false |
[
"\"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" is a song recorded by American musician Prince, under his unpronounceable stage name called the \"Love Symbol\". It was released as the only single from his twenty-third studio album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999). It was issued on October 5, 1999, in several different formats, including a 12-inch single, CD single, and a maxi single. Prince solely wrote and produced it, while Mike Scott provided guitar strings for the track. Several music critics found the single reminiscent to the works on his previous studio album, Diamonds and Pearls (1991).\n\nThe track is a smooth hip hop and soul ballad, featuring Prince's multi-layered vocals in the chorus. A B-side remix of the single entitled \"Adam and Eve\", featured a guest rap from Eve, while the Neptunes remix featured a guest rap from Q-Tip. The former version was included on Prince's first remix album, Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic (2001). The single became a minor hit, peaking at number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100. An accompanying music video was created shortly after Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic became available for purchase.\n\nComposition and release \nMusically, \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" is a smooth hip hop and soul ballad, unlike his previous pop music efforts. It was solely written and produced by Prince himself. The singer uses multi-layered vocals, a deep falsetto, and a downtempo melody throughout its chorus. The album version of the single has a duration of five minutes and twenty-nine seconds, while the radio edit lasts for four minutes and thirty seconds.\n\nSeveral different physical releases of the single occurred shortly after its release on October 5, 1999, as it was marketed as Prince's \"comeback\" song. A 12\" included eight different versions of the song, including the radio edit, the album version, the \"Adam & Eve\" remix, plus five additional remixes. The US CD single included the radio edit and Jason Nevins Remix of the track, plus a ten-second \"Call Out Research Hook\". Also, the Spanish CD single only contained the radio edit of the song.\n\nReception\n\nCritical reception \nThe track was generally well received by music critics. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club said \"[it] is more Diamonds and Pearls good than Sign O' the Times great.\" Chuck Taylor, a columnist for Billboard, called the single \"entirely satisfying\" and appreciated it for being unlike other songs on the radio. Entertainment Weeklys Chris Willman enjoyed the recording's seductiveness and its overall production. Alexis Petridis from The Guardian wrote in his retrospective review, \"By the end of the 90s, Prince obviously wanted commercial success again. The album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic came packed with guest appearances; the smooth hip-hop-soul balladry of The Greatest Romance Ever Sold was a good indication of its musical style. It wasn't a bad song, but the sense Prince was following trends rather than going his own way was hard to avoid.\" Toure from Rolling Stone was mixed in his review, stating that it \"sound[ed] like [a] refugee from Diamonds and Pearls, the least-great of Prince's great records\".\n\nCommercial reception \nAfter its release, \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" was moderately successful. The single peaked at number sixty-three on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Prince's highest peaking song on the chart since \"I Hate U\" (1995). The song also fared well on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs component chart, where it peaked at number twenty-three and lasting a total of twenty weeks on the chart. Elsewhere, the track peaked in the lower regions of several charts. In the United Kingdom, it peaked at position sixty-five, during February 2000. It also charted in Germany and the Netherlands, peaking at numbers seventy-nine and seventy-one, respectively.\n\nPromotion \nAn accompanying music video for the song was produced and created in late 1999. The visual features the singer performing in a dark room with several other female dancers; for the final segment of the video, Prince stands in front of a bullseye backdrop and a waterfall. In terms of live performances, the singer sang \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" for his direct to video VHS film Rave Un2 the Year 2000. The aforementioned rendition was recorded live on December 31, 1999 from Paisley Park Studios.\n\nTrack listings and formats \n\nUS CD single\n \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Jason Nevins Remix Edit) – 3:36\n \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Original Radio Edit) – 4:19\n \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Call Out Research Hook) – 0:10\n\nUS vinyl single\nA1 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Album Version) – 5:30\nA2 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Radio Edit) – 4:30\nB1 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Adam & Eve Remix, featuring Eve) – 4:28\nB2 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Radio Edit, featuring Eve) – 4:32\n\nSpanish CD single\n \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" – 4:26\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Radio Edit) – 4:30\n \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (The Adam & Eve Remix, featuring Eve) – 4:28\n\nUS and European 12\" single\nA1 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Radio Edit) – 4:32\nA2 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Jason Nevins Romance Beats) – 6:03\nB1 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Neptunes Extended Edit, featuring Q-Tip) – 5:08\nB2 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Jason Nevins Remix Edit) – 3:36\nC1 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Adam & Eve Mix, featuring Eve) – 4:30\nC2 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Album Version) – 5:29\nD1 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Jason Nevins Extended Mix) – 6:41\nD2 \"The Greatest Romance Ever Sold\" (Neptunes Remix Edit, featuring Q-Tip) – 3:42\n\nCredits and personnel \nCredits adapted from Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic liner notes\n Prince – vocals, instruments, lyrics, production\n Eve – guest vocals\n Q-Tip – guest vocals\n Mike Scott – guitar\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\nPrince (musician) songs\n1999 singles\n1990s ballads\nSongs written by Prince (musician)\nSoul ballads\nNPG Records singles\nArista Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Prince (musician)\n1999 songs",
"OutSpoken (styled outSPOKEN) was one of the first commercially available screen readers for a graphical user interface (GUI). Its notable innovations were the use of an off-screen model and the mouse pointer as a review cursor. The original Macintosh version was written by Wes Boyd and Bruce Berkhalter at Berkeley Systems. OutSpoken was first released for the Macintosh in 1989, and was the only screen reader ever available for the Macintosh prior to VoiceOver. OutSpoken for Microsoft Windows was released in 1994 for Windows 3.1, and was widely recognized as one of the first truly effective screen readers for Windows. OutSpoken for Windows was developed primarily by Ben Drees and Peter Korn, with user interface design by Marc Sutton and Joshua Miele.\n\nBerkeley Systems sold OutSpoken and all of its other accessibility assets to Alva Access Group of the Netherlands in 1996. In September, 2005, Optelec acquired the assets of ALVA BV., the parent company of ALVA Access Group.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n outSPOKEN Ensemble\n\nScreen readers\n1989 software"
] |
[
"Kate Tsui",
"2007-2008",
"Any great accomplishments during 2007",
"In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky,",
"Was there any major movies that same year",
"I don't know.",
"Did she ever have any issues with her roles",
"Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for.",
"Did her cast members have any words to say about her",
"He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung.",
"Was there ever a off screen romance",
"I don't know."
] |
C_3a38c1d298fd48bca3dc86d187aa10a4_0
|
Did she ever lose a role
| 6 |
Did Kate Tsui ever lose a role?
|
Kate Tsui
|
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in the film, Eye in the Sky was praised by professional Hong Kong film critic, Sek Kei, as the best Hong Kong film in the first half of 2007. The film was subsequently entered into the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Shanghai International Film Festival. Through her performance in the film, Tsui was widely acclaimed to be talented in acting and a rising actress worth looking out for. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer - Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008. The latter is a particularly outstanding achievement, for Tsui is, so far, the only individual to have received a Hong Kong Film Award, while being fully contracted by TVB, since Anita Yuen, who coincidentally is also a Miss Hong Kong pageant winner, won the same award back in 1993. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, had openly criticized the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, a film festival and awards ceremony held in Taiwan, for excluding Tsui and her performance in Eye in the Sky from a nomination in the Best New Performer category. He had further praised that Tsui has the most potential and talent in acting among all of TVB's Miss Hong Kong-turned-actresses, since Maggie Cheung. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Kate Tsui Tsz-shan is a former Hong Kong actress, who is best known for her work with Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), and to an extent, for her film work and singing career. She also holds the Miss Hong Kong 2004 title. In December 2019, she announced her retirement from the entertainment industry with plans of moving to Europe.
Early life
Kate was born and raised in Hong Kong. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a homemaker.
Prior to winning her beauty queen title, Tsui had originally aspired to become a professional dancer. She had begun practicing ballet since the age of 4, but was forced to quit when she was 11, due to an injury on her right ankle. At the age of 14, she had begun to practice Jazz dance, Salsa, and Argentina Tango.
She was educated at Kiangsu-Chekiang College (Shatin) and eventually graduated from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Japanese, minoring in Spanish and marketing. After completing her degree, she had returned to Hong Kong and worked as a translator and project coordinator. She had previously worked at an engineering firm.
In 2004, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and was crowned the winner along with the titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss International Goodwill, and the Slimming Beauty Award. After the pageant, she signed with TVB and began her career as an actress.
TV career
Following guest roles in The Zone and When Rules Turn Loose in 2005, Tsui made her official TV debut in TVB series, La Femme Desperado in 2006. Professional Taiwanese film critic, Mai Ruoyu, while critiquing Tsui's film performance, had said that Tsui had demonstrated strong charisma and had effectively held her own in La Femme Desperado, even while starring alongside veteran actresses, Sheren Tang and Melissa Ng. Her role as Ida in the series was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category, as well as the Favourite Female Character category, in the TVB Anniversary Awards 2006.
In 2007, Tsui had three TVB series released, including The Brink of Law, On the First Beat, and Steps. The roles cumulatively earned her the Most Improved Female Artist award from the TVB Anniversary Awards 2007. Her role in Steps also earned her nominations in the Best Actress category, as well Favourite Female Character category for the same awards show.
In 2008, Tsui took on her first villain role in Moonlight Resonance, and the role had earned her a Top 5 position in the Best Supporting Actress category of the TVB Anniversary Awards 2008. On the other hand, her leading role in Speech of Silence, in which she played a deaf character, had earned her a Top 10 position in the Best Actress category of the aforementioned awards show.
While Tsui's TV career quieted down during 2009 to 2010, due to her focus on her film career, 2011 proved to be fruitful for Tsui, with six of her TV dramas airing on TVB. Of the six roles, Paris Yiu from Lives of Omission had garnered the most attention. For the role, Tsui was awarded a My Favourite TVB Female TV Character award from the StarHub TVB Awards, nominations in the Best Actress and Favourite Female Character categories for the TVB Anniversary Awards 2011, as well as a nomination for Outstanding Actress in Television by the Ming Pao Anniversary Award.
Additionally, in 2011, with the high turnover rate in contracted TVB artists, TVB executive, Virginia Lok, appointed Tsui, Myolie Wu, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen, as the new Top 4 "Fa Dans" (a Cantonese term that is used for actresses with high popularity and status in TVB), with their predecessors being Flora Chan, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, and Jessica Hsuan.
2012 is arguably Tsui's peak year in her TV career. In Highs and Lows, Tsui portrays an extremely tragic character that struggled with substance abuse, gang rape, and eventually, drug dealing. Tsui described her experience of filming this drama as "being on an emotional roller coaster", to the extent that she did not wish to speak to anyone or pick up the phone after work. The producer of the drama, Lam Chi Wah, referred to Tsui's role in Highs and Lows as the greatest breakthrough in her career and applauded her for setting down her image as a beauty pageant winner to dive into such a complex character in the drama. Film director, Patrick Kong, also noted in his column that Tsui's acting has greatly matured in Highs and Lows, particularly in her portrayal of emotional scenes.
In 2014, Tsui took part in a TVB-produced micro film, A Time of Love, which consists of four individual stories, each with a separate theme. Tsui starred opposite Taiwanese actors, James Wen and Chris Wang, in the "sorrow" themed story. After the airing of the micro film, TVB received 39 individual viewer statements that commended Tsui of her outstanding performance in the micro film. Column writer, Ko Leung, of Macao Daily, also stated Tsui portrayed her character in the micro film perfectly and that Tsui's acting is comparable to that of Bai Baihe in The Stolen Years.
In 2015, Tsui's management contract with TVB ended. However, Tsui said that she is still on very good terms with TVB, and TVB has settled job arrangements for her up until February 2016. Despite having received several offers, Tsui stated that she will not finalize any management contract agreements until she has completed her jewelry design courses.
Film career
Aside from her development in television acting, Tsui also experienced success in developing her career in the film industry. In 2007, through a series of auditions, Tsui was cast as the female lead, alongside A-list actors Tony Leung Ka-fai and Simon Yam, in Eye in the Sky, which is a film produced by Johnnie To and directed by Yau Nai-hoi. With her performance in Eye in the Sky, Tsui earned the Best Newcomer – Gold Award from Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007, as well as Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer from the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards, held in 2008.
In 2009, Tsui starred in I Corrupt All Cops, a Hong Kong crime drama, directed by Wong Jing, who was impressed with the success of her debut performance in Eye in the Sky. Eason Chan, who plays Tsui's husband in the film, said Tsui's character is based on Shuang'er from The Deer and the Cauldron.
In 2010, Tsui starred in Wuxia film 14 Blades, alongside Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, and Wu Chun.
In 2011, Tsui reprised her role as Paris Yiu Ho Ho from the TVB series Lives of Omission in its film sequel, Turning Point 2, in which she starred opposite Francis Ng. Playing a character with a mental disorder in the film, Tsui said that collaborating with Ng was a valuable experience because Ng was extremely willing to teach and give her suggestions about her acting and performances. From working with Tsui, Ng had openly praised her for her acting potential.
In 2013, Tsui took part in a comedy film, I Love Hong Kong 2013. It is also the first film that veteran actress, Veronica Yip, has taken part in since her retirement in 1996. In the film, Tsui plays the younger version of Yip's character. The producer of the film, Eric Tsang, specifically praised Tsui for providing the best performance out of the entire cast, referring to it as a "Best Actress performance". In the same year, Tsui was also cast in Giddens Ko film, A Choo, alongside Ariel Lin and Kai Ko.
In 2015, Tsui was cast in thriller film, Knock Knock, Who's There?. The film is the first directorial effort by veteran actress, Carrie Ng. Tsui said that upon receiving the script, she had intended to reject the role because of the frightening content. However, Tsui eventually agreed to the role due to Ng's persistence and persuasion. With reference to collaborating with Tsui, Ng said that Tsui is a very professional and admirable actress.
Jewelry design career
In December 2015, Tsui launched a jewelry line with K.S. Sze & Sons Ltd. The collection is called "Rabbit-Duck Illusion". She indicated that her designs are inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept on the two different ways of seeing, using the ambiguous image of a "duckrabbit". She spoke of the concept behind her jewelry designs, "It's something that I like to remind myself of, that there are many situations in life that aren't worth splitting hairs over, and if I simply adjust the angle that I'm viewing things from, I can easily see a different perspective." In early 2016, Tsui found her own fine jewelry brand and online shop; katetsui.com
Further education
In 2015–2016, Tsui completed her Jewelry Design course at GIA and Colored Gem Professional Level II at the Gübelin Academy.
In June 2019, Tsui finished her master's degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She plans to further her studies overseas and pursue a PhD in psychology.
Filmography
Films
Television
Awards
2016
The most promising new entrepreneur of the year - katetsui.com
2015
Jade Solid Gold Music Awards Presentation 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2014
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Bounty Lady)
StarHub TVB Awards 2014 – Everlasting Glow Award
Jade Solid Gold Second Round Music Awards 2014 – Song Award: 棋逢敵手 (with Hubert Wu)
2013
StarHub TVB Awards 2013– My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2013 – Most Glamorous Female Artist Award
Next TV Awards 2013 – Top 10 Artist (No. 10)
2012
TVB 45th Anniversary Awards 2012 – My Favourite Female Character Award (Highs and Lows)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – My Top 6 Favourite Female TV Character Award (Lives of Omission)
StarHub TVB Awards 2012 – Star of Perfect Poise Award
My AOD Awards 2012 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Highs and Lows)
2011
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – My Favourite Female TV Character (When Lanes Merge)
StarHub TVB Awards 2011 – Most Energetic Award
My AOD Awards 2011 – My Top 15 Favourite Characters Award (Forensic Heroes III)
2010
2009 Ultimate Song Chart Awards (903) – Female Newcomer – Silver
2009 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation – Best Newcomer Artist – Gold
2009 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards – Best Prospective Newcomer Award – Gold
Sina Music Awards 2009 – My Favourite Female Newcomer 2009 – Bronze
Sprite Music Award () Ceremony 2009 – Most Outstanding Newcomer Award (Hong Kong Region)
IFPI Hong Kong CD Sales Presentation 2009 – Top Selling Hong Kong Female Newcomer
2009
Jade Solid Gold First Round Music Awards 2009 – Newcomer Impact Award
JSG Third Round Music Awards 2009 – Song Award: Hit Me
Metro Radio Hits Music Award Presentation 2009 – Metro Radio Hits King of New Singers Award 2009 (Female)
2008
27th Hong Kong Film Awards – Best New Performer Award
2007
TVB 40th Anniversary Awards 2007 – Most Improved Female Artist Award
Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild 2007 – Best Newcomer – Gold Award
2005
Miss Chinese International 2005 – Miss Gorgeous
2004
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Winner
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss Photogenic
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Miss International Goodwill
Miss Hong Kong 2004 – Slimming Beauty Award
Discography
Albums
Songs
References
External links
Official TVB Blog of Kate Tsui
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Miss Hong Kong
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | TVB Anniversary Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards
|-
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Metro Radio Hit Music Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Commercial Radio Song Awards
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation
|-
!colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards
1979 births
Living people
21st-century Hong Kong women singers
Hong Kong film actresses
Hong Kong television actresses
Miss Hong Kong winners
TVB actors
University of California, Davis alumni
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
People from Boluo
21st-century Hong Kong actresses
Hakka musicians
| false |
[
"Heidi Noelle Guenther (January 11, 1975 – June 30, 1997) was an American ballerina from 1981 to her death in 1997. Guenther died from cardiac arrest which was believed to be caused by her eating disorder.\n\nBiography \nGuenther was born in San Francisco. She was raised in Los Osos, and trained at School of the American Ballet and Houston Ballet School during the summer. Guenther earned a full scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet School when she was twelve. She performed throughout high school and in 1994, performed in \"Symphony in C\" at the Kennedy Center.\n\nShe was first told to lose weight by the San Francisco Ballet School. In 1994 and in 1995, Artistic director Anna-Marie Holmes encouraged Guenther to lose weight, eventually going to 110 pounds. The weight loss did not stop here. Gunther continued to drop weight at an alarmingly quick rate. Guenther was soon promoted to the Boston Ballet in 1994 as an apprentice dancer. A colleague, Kyra Strasberg, called Guenther, \"a very, very talented dancer with a gorgeous light jump.\"\n\nGuenther broke her foot in the first season, as an apprentice. She did not seek medical attention, because she was afraid she would lose her contract. Instead she rested her foot when she wasn't dancing, causing her to gain five pounds. The Boston Ballet did urge her to not lose any more weight in an evaluation given in January 1997. At the time, the company was worried that she may have an eating disorder. Though the company noticed her weight loss they did not follow up with her about it. Boston Ballet did not address the issue that was an eating disorder. She was considered \"dangerously thin\" by the ballet's records. Holmes, however, told Guenther before she left for summer vacation starting in June 1995, that if she didn't lose the five pounds she gained, she would not gain a contract. Guenther wrote a note to herself for that summer vacation, renewing her commitment to lose weight, \"They always pick people for parts who are skinny.\" While the Boston Ballet did counsel her to gain weight, Guenther's mother noticed that the thinner her daughter was, the more dancing roles she was given. This added to the pressure already placed on Heidi to lose weight.\n\nDuring a family trip to Disneyland, Guenther died on June 30, 1997 of cardiac arrest at the age of 22. There was not an event that led up to her death. Heidi was sitting in the back seat of a vehicle when all of a sudden she was no longer breathing. Her death was speculated to be caused by her immense amount of weight loss.\n\nIn a later search, a stash of laxatives and herbal diet-aid pills were found in her possession. Along with the use of medication to lose weight, many of Heidi's friends stated that she had an unhealthy relationship with purging, as well as skipping meals. An autopsy showed no heart deformities and no abnormal substances in her blood. However, her heart wall was found to be abnormally thin. A week before her death, she told her family that her heart was \"racing\" and \"pounding,\" but she would not seek medical attention.\n\nHer family filed a wrongful death suit in 2000, against the Boston Ballet, for putting excessive pressure on Guenther to lose weight. Holmes was also named as a defendant in the suit, which was filed just before the statute of limitations expired. The suit was later rejected by the courts.\n\nLegacy \nGuenther's death \"was a wake-up call for everyone,\" causing ballet companies to treat eating disorders as a \"top priority.\" Immediately after her death, some American ballet companies said they would change their policies or offer extra information about eating disorders. Her death caused the Boston Ballet to begin nutrition counseling, onsite therapists, wellness seminars and help with weight control. Her family is attempting to start a foundation to help young athletes and dancers in honor of Guenther.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican ballerinas\n1975 births\n1997 deaths\nDeaths from anorexia nervosa\nNeurological disease deaths in California\nPeople from San Francisco\nBoston Ballet dancers\nPeople from Los Osos, California\n20th-century American ballet dancers",
"Evermore is a fantasy novel by Alyson Noël released in 2009. It is the first novel in the Immortals series. Evermore was an immediate bestseller and, as of October 11, 2009, had spent 34 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list for children's books.\n\nCharacters\nEver Bloom: \nEver is the protagonist and narrator of the story. Having lost her family in a tragic car accident, she struggles to cope with her new life living with her aunt, frequently blaming herself for her family's deaths and wishing it on herself. Having once been confident, popular and easy-going, she becomes a recluse, often branded a 'freak' by classmates as she can read thoughts as well as knowing parts of people's life at the touch. She despises this; she wishes her powers would be gone and to go back to the normal life she had before. Until, one day, a new boy joins her class. She tries to ignore him at first, but she gradually falls in love, and her world totally changes.\n\nDamen Auguste Esposito :\nDamen Auguste is an Immortal, the first one to ever exist. His father made an elixir that promotes everlasting life, along with Damen knowing the recipe. He fell in love with Ever when he first met her, after he and his wife (Drina Magdalena Augusta) separated. Life after life, Ever's reincarnations were killed in \"accidents\". He always began to lose hope before Ever appeared in his life again. Damen has access to Summerland, a place where dead souls that did not cross over stay. According to book, he is more than six hundred years old. Granted by his immortality, great artists like William Shakespeare, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh had given him pieces of artwork.\n\nSabine:\nSabine is Ever's aunt who takes care of Ever and stays with her after her family died. Although Ever is thankful for Sabine taking her in, she often feels like she took away Sabine's freedom. The book describes her profession as an attorney. She is mostly out of house, busy in her work and earns great money.\n\nRiley Bloom:\nEver's 12-year-old little sister who died in the car accident. Ever is frequently visited by Riley's ghost who always butts into Ever's life or gives her information on every celebrity in the universe.\n\nDrina Auguste: Drina Auguste was Damen's wife and one of the first Immortals. She is highly ruthless and has always believed that she is superior to others. She is madly in love with Damen and will stop at nothing to get him back. She has been killing Ever's reincarnations one after the other in a sadistic way. Drina hopes that Damen will see that he loves her, not Ever and that humans don't deserve his compassion. She is killed by Ever during their second fight in Ever's kitchen.\n\nAva:\nAva is a psychic far less powerful than Ever or Damen. She can see people's thoughts with less accuracy and can see dead souls. Ava was hired by Ever's Aunt Sabine for a Halloween party where she saw Riley. She tried to convince her to cross to the other side and turned to Ever when she failed. Ever noticed she had a violet aura, which stands for \"Highly spiritual, wisdom, intuition\". Ava also taught Ever to make a shield around her which really helped her to forget of thought-hearing and aura-seeing and to mix with other people like a normal girl.\n\nHaven:\nOne of Ever's only friends. Haven is very self-conscious and eager to fit in with other people, and constantly changes her style to achieve this. She adores cupcakes and shows a very keen interest in Damen, and gets very agitated when he only pays attention to Ever and not her. Haven becomes affiliated with Drina, much to Ever's dismay, which causes huge problems later in the story.\n\nMiles:\nAn over-the-top drama queen, Miles adores being in the spotlight. Constantly found texting his latest boyfriend, gossiping or practicing the lines to his lead role in the musical Hairspray. Although unaware of Ever's secret he has always been a true friend to her.\n\nStacia Miller:\nAn extremely popular girl at Ever's school who constantly taunts Ever. She ridicules her with rude comments such as \"loser\" or \"freak\". She is jealous of Ever for getting the hot new guy when no one else could. She blackmails and threatens people to get her way. When Ever was addicted to drinking Stacia pretended to be her friend and drank with her but just enough not to get drunk, then later turned Ever into the principal where she got suspended.\n\nAdaptations\nOn March 28, 2011, Alyson Noël announced that all 10 books in both The Immortals and The Riley Bloom Series have been optioned by Summit Entertainment.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Author's website\n\n2009 American novels\nAmerican fantasy novels\nContemporary fantasy novels"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits"
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
What were her views on abortion time limits?
| 1 |
What were Nadine Dorries's views on abortion time limits?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"The Atonement Child is a 1997 novel by the American author Francine Rivers. It deals with the themes of unwanted pregnancy and abortion.\n\nPlot introduction\nDynah is a young Christian girl at a Bible college when rape shatters her life. The resulting pregnancy and reactions from her family and friends may in turn shatter her faith. As her pro-life fiancé suddenly finds abortion acceptable, and her pro-life school informs her that she will be expelled unless her pregnancy disappears, she is forced to wonder about their views of the world, what God has said in the Bible, and of her own unsteady pro-life views. At home she finds her family torn apart as her mother admits to an abortion before she had Dynah that made her incapable of having children for several years. She also learns that her grandmother was forced to have an abortion for \"health reasons\". Dynah is eventually driven to isolate herself so that she can make the decision on her own. As her mother's \"Atonement Child\", Dynah must come to the decision on whether or not to have her own \"Atonement Child\".\n\n1997 American novels\nNovels by Francine Rivers\nAmerican Christian novels\nNovels about rape\nNovels about abortion",
"Eric Olauson is a former Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan in the 2016 provincial election. He represented the electoral district of Saskatoon University as a member of the Saskatchewan Party until 2020. Prior to his election, he was the Ward 8 councillor on Saskatoon City Council for less than a full term. He served on the Standing Committee For Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice, Standing Committee on Human Services, Standing Committee on Private Bills, Caucus Committee for Municipal Cooperation and the Caucus Management Committee.\n\nControversies\n\nDrunk Driving\nOlauson was one of several candidates during the 2016 election who were previously convicted of drunk driving. Olauson's two convictions were from 1992 and 1993 and were not disclosed during his time as a city councilor.\n\nSocial media\nShortly after his election to provincial office, Olauson was reprimanded for his social media activity, which included liking a Facebook post about \"slapping the shit\" out of political opponents and liking a Facebook page called the \"Boobszone.\" As a result of this, the Sask Party government temporarily ordered Olauson to stay off of social media and removed him from a committee seat.\n\nBackground Checks\nIn April 2017, Olauson was dropped from the board for the Meewasin Valley Authority after it was reported he had ordered a background check on a constituent voicing her concerns regarding cuts to libraries and municipal funding. Olauson had accidentally hit \"reply all\" instead of just reply when emailing his assistant to instruct her to perform the check. The email stated that his ensuing response would be \"epic.\"\n\nFinances\nAs the Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Parks, Culture and Sport, Olauson receives an additional $3,000 salary top up from the Saskatchewan Party, aside from the base pay for Members of the Legislative Assembly, which is $96,183, despite there being no record or reports of work done in this position.\n\nPrior to his early departure from Saskatoon City Council, Olauson charged the city $440 for four football jerseys, billed as a supposed communication expense. In 2015, he voted against the Saskatoon Municipal Review Commission's proposal to end corporate and union donations, which was rejected in a 7-4 vote by the city council.\n\nPolitical Views\n\nAbortion\nOlauson has participated in the anti-abortion March for Life protests in Ottawa while serving as a provincial MLA. In the 2018 Saskatchewan Party leadership election, Olauson supported Ken Cheveldayoff, who had stated that he doesn't believe rape victims should have legal access to abortion services, earning him the anti-abortion group Right Now's top rank out of the six leadership candidates.\n\nWhile the Saskatchewan Party caucus debated expanding access to abortion medication, Minister of Health Greg Ottenbreit told an anti-abortion group he would do what he could in his \"professional capacity\" to block abortion access. It was leaked that Olauson, as chair of the Saskatchewan Party caucus, issued a gag order, telling members to not talk to the media about Ottenbreit's anti-abortion views.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nSaskatchewan Party MLAs\nSaskatoon city councillors\n21st-century Canadian politicians\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed."
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
What was the experience?
| 2 |
What was the experience that Nadine Dorries which influenced her campaign?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions,
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| false |
[
"Paradiso is an immersive theater experience and interactive game that was created by Michael Counts. It is expected to span four chapters, the first of which opened in New York City during July 2016. Counts drew inspiration for Paradiso from Dante's Divine Comedy and the experience features elements of crime noir.\n\nParadiso: Chapter 1 \nThe first chapter's premise places ten participants in a locked apartment that they must escape while also evading the Virgil Corporation, a shadowy crime gang. Players must solve puzzles within a certain span of time, otherwise they will not be able to complete the entire experience. Special effects such as 3D technology and actors are used during the experience to enhance game play.\n\nReception \nParadiso: Chapter 1 received praise from media outlets such as Fangoria and the New York Daily News, the former of which felt that it was an \"intense and reinvigorating escape room experience\" and compared it favorably to similar immersive theater experiences by Counts. The New Yorker was mostly positive in their review, noting that while the puzzles and plot \"feel desultory\" the show worked as a haunted house experience. The New York Times commented that \"What you get out of it will depend on what you put into it, and perhaps on whom you bring along\", further remarking that knowing the strengths fellow participants ahead of time would potentially make it faster to solve puzzles, as time was limited.\n\nThe Village Voice was more critical, as they felt that the plot was too thin, a criticism shared by Exeunt Magazine.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2016 establishments in New York City\nTheatre in New York City",
"Shaman is a steel roller coaster at Gardaland, Castelnuovo del Garda, outside Verona, Italy. The ride was originally named 'Magic Mountain' and was designed by Vekoma, and initially used Arrow Dynamics trains, which were replaced with newer Vekoma trains with vest restraints in 2008.\nThe ride added a VR experience in 2017 and additional new theming was added around the ride and the name of the coaster changed to 'SHAMAN'.\nFor the 2018 season, the VR has since been removed. In November 2020, Gardaland began removing parts of the track. It was replaced with new track pieces, similar to what was done on Python at Efteling, to improve the smoothness of the ride experience. The supports & other theming items were also repainted to improve the theming of the area.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nRoller coasters in Italy\nRoller coasters operated by Merlin Entertainments\nRoller coasters introduced in 1985\nGardaland rides\n1985 establishments in Italy"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,"
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?
| 3 |
Was Nadine Dorries successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Abortion in the Netherlands was fully legalized on November 1, 1984, allowing abortions to be done on-demand until the 21st week. Abortion for medical reasons can be performed until 24 weeks. There is a five-day waiting period for abortions.\n\nHistory \nAbortion was deemed illegal under the Penal Code of 1886. Convictions were all but precluded, however, by a requirement that the prosecution prove that the fetus had been alive until the abortion. The Morality Acts of 1911 closed this loophole, and strictly barred all abortions, except those performed to save the life of the pregnant woman.\n\nLegalization reached the forefront of public debate in the Netherlands during the 1970s as many other Western European countries liberalized their laws. The Staten-Generaal, however, was unable to reach a consensus between those opposing legalization, those in favor of allowing abortion, and those favoring a compromise measure. A controversial abortion law was passed in 1981 with single swing votes: 76 for and 74 against in the House of Representatives, and 38 for and 37 against in the Senate. The law left abortion a crime, unless performed at a clinic or hospital that is issued an official abortion certificate by the Dutch government, and the woman who is asking for the abortion declares she considers it to be an emergency. The law came into effect on November 1, 1984.\n\nCurrently, there are just over 100 Dutch general hospitals certified to perform abortions, and 17 specialized abortion clinics. More than 90% of abortions take place in the specialized clinics.\n\nIn the Netherlands, abortion performed by a certified clinic or hospital is effectually allowed at any point between conception and viability, subject to a five-day waiting period. The waiting period is exempt if the pregnancy is less than 17 days (very early stage pregnancy). After the first trimester, the procedure becomes stricter, as two doctors must consent to treatment. In practice, abortions are performed until approximately 24 weeks into pregnancy, although this limit is the topic of ongoing discussion among physicians in the Netherlands, since, due to recent medical advancements, a fetus can sometimes be considered viable prior to 24 weeks. As a result of this debate, abortions are only rarely performed after 22 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions must be performed in a hospital.\n\nThe number of abortions has been relatively stable in the 21st century, around 28,000 per year. , the abortion rate was 9.7 abortions per 1000 women aged 15–44 years.\n\nSee also \nAbortion in Belgium\nAbortion in the United Kingdom\nAbortion law\nAbortion debate\nReligion and abortion\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nOfficial Dutch government site on abortion (Dutch)\nOfficial Abortion Physicians site on abortion (Dutch)",
"Joan Graeme Malleson, née Billson (4 June 1899 – 14 May 1956) was an English physician, specialist in contraception and prominent advocate of the legalisation of abortion.\n\nLife\nBillson was born at Ulverscroft, Leicestershire. She was educated at Bedales School, where she became Head Girl, and studied medicine at University College, London from 1918, later moving to Charing Cross Hospital due to the hostility to female students she experienced at UCL. In 1923 she married the actor Miles Malleson; they divorced in 1940. She qualified in 1926 and worked for Holborn Borough Council and the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, developing an interest in the fields of fertility, reproduction and sexuality. \n\nIn 1931, while working for Ealing Borough Council, she became one of the first British doctors to provide birth control advice on behalf of a local authority. In 1935 she published The Principles of Contraception, a practical guide. She became a member of the executive committee of the National Birth Control Association (later the Family Planning Association). In 1936 the Abortion Law Reform Association was started by Alice Jenkins and Janet Chance. Malleson was amongst its more influential supporters.\n\nShe courted controversy by supporting the campaign to reform the abortion law. In 1938 she precipitated one of the most influential cases in British abortion law when she referred a pregnant fourteen-year-old rape victim to gynaecologist Aleck Bourne. He performed an abortion, then illegal, and was put on trial for it. Malleson gave evidence at the trial and Bourne's acquittal set a precedent that doctors could not be prosecuted for performing an abortion in similar circumstances. Malleson was also a supporter of eugenics and member of the Eugenics Society. In 1950 she was appointed head of the contraceptive clinic at University College Hospital.\n\nDeath\nShe died in 1956, at the age of 56 from a heart attack while swimming off Suva, Fiji.\n\nReferences\n\n1899 births\n1956 deaths\nAlumni of University College London\nBritish abortion-rights activists\n20th-century English medical doctors\nEnglish women medical doctors\nPeople educated at Bedales School\nPeople from the Borough of Charnwood\n20th-century women physicians\n20th-century English women\n20th-century English people"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,",
"Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?",
"Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill."
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
What was her reaction to that?
| 4 |
What was Nadine Dorries's reaction to Parliament's vote to reject the bill?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Irma Goldberg (born 1871) was one of the first female organic chemists to have and sustain a successful career, her work even being quoted in her own name in standard textbooks.\n\nLife\n\nEducation\nBorn in Moscow to a Russian-Jewish family, she later traveled to Geneva in the 1890s to study chemistry at Geneva University.\n\nEarly research, Ullmann reaction\nHer early research included the development of a process to remove sulfur and phosphorus from acetylene. \nHer first article on the derivatives of benzophenone, coauthored by German chemist Fritz Ullman, was published in 1897. She also researched and wrote a paper (published in 1904) on using copper as a catalyst for the preparation of a phenyl derivative of thiosalicylic acid, a process known as the Ullmann reaction; Goldberg is the only woman scientist unambiguously recognized for her own named reaction: the amidation (Goldberg) reaction. This modification to previous forms of the method was a great improvement, and was extremely helpful for laboratory-scale preparations. She coordinated on other forms of chemistry research with her husband, Fritz Ullmann, in what they called the Ullmann-Goldberg collaborative.\n\nMove to Berlin, synthetic dye research\nIn 1905, both Goldberg and Ullman moved to Technische Hochschule in Berlin. Goldberg's research, along with that of the Ullmann-Goldberg collaborative, was also a part of Germany's synthetic dye industry. Their research helped with the creation of the synthetic alizarin industry, or the process of replacing natural dye obtained from madder. In 1909, Goldberg also collaborated with Hermann Friedman to review German patents under BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik) and Bayer & Co. Farbenfabriken, providing notes on preparation for 114 dyes.\n\nMarriage and later life\nIn 1910, Goldberg married Ullman. In 1923, they moved back to Geneva when Ullman accepted a faculty position at Geneva University. \n\nHer exact death date is not known, but her name does appear at the top of a list of people signing a memorial notice in a Geneva newspaper for her deceased husband, Fritz Ullmann in 1939.\n\nSee also\nTimeline of women in science\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nRussian women scientists\nGerman women scientists\n19th-century women scientists\n20th-century women scientists\nRussian women chemists\nGerman women chemists\nOrganic chemists\n1871 births\nYear of death missing",
"Marta Catellani is an Italian chemist known for her discovery of the eponymous Catellani reaction in 1997. She was elected to the European Academy of Sciences in 2016. Catellani earned her Ph.D. in chemistry in 1971 from the University of Parma, where, as of 2019, she is a professor and chairs the Department of Organic Chemistry.\n\nCatellani completed her postdoctoral education at the University of Chicago. She has served as a visiting professor at Moscow State University (1992), Beijing Institute of Technology (2004), and University of Xi'an (2004). She was awarded a fellowship at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2012.\n\nHer research focuses on palladium as a catalyst for multistep organic reactions.\n\nThe Catellani Reaction \nIn chemistry there is a practice known as synthesis. This process is used to form complex chemical compounds from simpler ones. These complex compounds are desirable for their ranging abilities and properties. In order to produce the complex compounds, the simpler ones must “cooperate” in a specific way. This can be very difficult and requires patience, because of the time required to make the bonds so their uses and properties can be tested. There was a need for optimization of this process in order to speed up the development and testing of new compounds. Catellani and her team in 1997 found such a method to optimize this process. Catellani discovered a chain reaction process that simplified and increased yield for desirable complex compounds. One bond the Catellani Reaction is heavily used to create is Carbon-Carbon bonds. These bonds are desirable for their stability and strength. These qualities make the bonds very useful in the makeup of more complex compounds.\n\nSince its discovery, the Catellani Reaction has opened the door to other discoveries or improvements in chemistry. Specifically in the world of pharmaceuticals, the Catellani Reaction has been a useful tool for synthesizing drugs in a more efficient way to aid in their development. Lenoxipen is an example of one of the complex compounds now much easier to achieve with the discovery of Catellani Reactions. This compound belongs to a group of compounds known as Lignans that are useful for relieving pain and may provide benefits to cancer patients. These examples of the uses for Catellani Reactions show the vast and indirect benefits to its discovery. To chemists, the Catellani Reaction is a tool that acts to optimize the process for making new compounds. These new compounds are pivotal for advancing what is possible through chemistry. As new scientists study and try to build upon the Catellani Reaction, it is important to remember who provided the first understanding as it would open up a new world of opportunity.\n\nReferences \n\nLiving people\nItalian chemists\nItalian women chemists\nItalian women scientists\nMembers of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts\nUniversity of Parma faculty\nOrganic chemists\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,",
"Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?",
"Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.",
"What was her reaction to that?",
"In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill"
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
What did the amendment say?
| 5 |
What did the amendment to Human Fertilization and Embryology say?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy.
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221 (1920), was a United States Supreme Court case coming out of the state of Ohio. It challenged the validity of the way in which the 18th Amendment had been passed.\n\nBackground \nThe Ohio General Assembly reserved to the people the right to review the state legislature's ratification of any federal amendment. This meant that within ninety days of the ratification of an amendment by the state legislature, that ratification could be challenged by a petition signed by six percent of Ohio voters. This would then bring the issue to referendum.\n\nIn the case of Ohio and the 18th Amendment, the legislature ratified the amendment and, before the ninety-day waiting period had passed, the Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, declared the 18th Amendment to be in effect. Meanwhile, a petition was signed by at least six percent of the voters and, in the ensuing referendum, a majority of Ohio voters voted against prohibition, seemingly invalidating the passage of the 18th Amendment. The controversy regarding this situation eventually led to a court case which made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.\n\nThe issue before the court was whether or not a state had a right to reserve to its people the right to review its legislature's ratification of federal amendments. The prohibitionists argued that the Constitution provided for the ratifying of federal amendments by state legislatures—it said nothing about the people's right to review such amendments. Opponents of this view argued that the Constitution did not say anything about what constituted a state legislature and it was up to each of the states to decide what constituted its legislature. Thus in the case of Ohio, the idea of \"state legislature\" came with the limit of not being able to ratify a federal amendment without review by the people of the state, and, thus, the amendment had not been ratified.\n\nOpinion of the Court \nOn June 1, 1920, the Court ruled that Ohio voters could not overturn the state legislature's approval of the Eighteenth Amendment.\n\nSignificance \nHawke v. Smith was important for two reasons. First, several other states had been considering referendums on Prohibition. This case made it clear that the 18th Amendment was valid. Second, the fact that the amendment passed in Ohio despite a majority of voters voting against it fostered the idea that Prohibition was the work of powerful groups and not the people themselves.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. 2nd ed. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State UP, 2000. Pages 14–16.\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1920 in United States case law\nLegal history of Ohio\nProhibition in the United States\nUnited States Supreme Court cases\nUnited States Supreme Court cases of the White Court\n1920 in Ohio\nUnited States Eighteenth Amendment case law\nUnited States Constitution Article Five case law\nReferendums in the United States",
"Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463 (1976), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that search of petitioner's offices for business records, their seizure, and subsequent introduction into evidence did not offend the Fifth Amendment's proscription that “[n]o person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Although the records seized contained statements that petitioner voluntarily had committed to writing, he was never required to say anything.\n\nSee also \n United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976)\n Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391 (1976)\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n\nUnited States Supreme Court cases\nUnited States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court\nUnited States Fourth Amendment case law\nUnited States Fifth Amendment self-incrimination case law\n1976 in United States case law"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,",
"Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?",
"Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.",
"What was her reaction to that?",
"In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill",
"What did the amendment say?",
"Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy."
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
Was this successful?
| 6 |
Was amendment to Human Fertilization and Embryology successful?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233.
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"\"Sin Despertar\" is a pop song performed by Chilean band Kudai. It was released as the first single of their debut album Vuelo. This single was also their first single as Kudai, after they gave up their old name band Ciao. This single was very successful in Chile and Argentina and later in the rest of Latin America, including Mexico.\n\nMusic video\nKudai's music video for their first single ever \"Sin Despertar\", was filmed in Santiago, Chile and the location used in this music videos was in O'Higgins Park, Movistar Arena Santiago, the video was premiered on 24 June 2004 on MTV, and this was very successful on Los 10+ Pedidos and Top 20.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nKudai Official Site\nEMI Music Mexico\n\n2004 singles\nKudai songs\n2005 singles\n2006 singles\n2004 songs",
"Rough and Ready Volume 2 is a studio album released by Shabba Ranks. This album was not as successful as Volume 1 and it was going to be difficult to create an album as successful as its predecessor, X-tra Naked, which won a Grammy. Volume 2 was criticised for lacking variety.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n1993 albums\nShabba Ranks albums\nEpic Records albums"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,",
"Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?",
"Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.",
"What was her reaction to that?",
"In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill",
"What did the amendment say?",
"Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy.",
"Was this successful?",
"Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233."
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
Did she try again?
| 7 |
Did Nadine Dorries try again after the amendment was defeated ?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| false |
[
"Try, Try Again may refer to:\n\nIn television episodes:\n \"Try, Try Again\" (Bigfoot Presents: Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks)\n \"Try, Try Again\" (The Brady Bunch)\n \"Try, Try Again\" (Eureka)\n \"Try, Try Again\" (Gawayn)\n \"Try, Try Again\" (Little People, Big World)\n\nIn other uses:\n Try, Try Again (film), a 1922 film starring James Parrott\n \"Try Try Again\", a song by Hank Williams, Jr. from Greatest Hits\n Try Try Again, a Thoroughbred racehorse whose offspring include Ribot\n\nSee also \n \"Try Try Try Again\", a song by Dressy Bessy from Electrified\n \"Try Again, Again\" a 2006 song by Brian Posehn\n Try Again (disambiguation)",
"Try Again may refer to:\n\n\"Try Again\" (Aaliyah song), 2000\n\"Try Again\" (Champaign song), 1983\n\"Try Again\" (Dilba song), 2011\n\"Try Again\" (Keane song), 2006\n\"Try Again\" (Mai Kuraki song), 2013\n\"Try Again\", a song by Big Star from #1 Record, 1972\n\"Try Again\", a song by Dean Martin, 1954\n\"Try Again\", a song by Kip Moore from Slowheart, 2017\n\"Try Again\", a song by Patsy Cline, 1957\n\"Try Again\", a song by Supertramp from Supertramp, 1970\n\"Try Again\", a song by Teyana Taylor from The Album, 2020\n\"Try Again\", a song by Westlife from Westlife, 1999\n\nSee also\nTry, Try Again (disambiguation)\n\nEnglish phrases"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,",
"Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?",
"Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.",
"What was her reaction to that?",
"In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill",
"What did the amendment say?",
"Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy.",
"Was this successful?",
"Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233.",
"Did she try again?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
Was there anything else interesting about her abortion views?
| 8 |
Was there anything else interesting about Nadine Dorries's abortion views other than the amendment?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life."
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| false |
[
"Susan Hill (August 7, 1948 – January 30, 2010) was an abortion rights activist from Durham, North Carolina. She was President of the National Women's Health Organization in North Carolina, helping oversee a group of abortion clinics in the Southeast. She is most celebrated for her commitment to women's reproductive rights, with the National Organization for Women writing about Hill \"She went on to open the first abortion clinic in the state of Florida and was a founding member of both the National Abortion Federation and the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.\"\n\nEarly life\n\nSusan Hill was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina. She had two brothers. She graduated from Charles E. Jordan High School in 1966, then graduated from Meredith College in 1970 with a degree in social work.\n\nAfter college in 1973, Hill went on to be a social worker in Florida, opening the first abortion clinic in the state.\n\nWork\n\nHill worked as an advocate of women's reproductive rights, and owned several women's health centers across the country, including the now famous Jackson Women's Health Center, the last remaining health center providing abortions in Mississippi.\n\nHill's main focus was on providing clinics to rural areas where women had little to no access to abortion services. She opened more clinics than anyone else in the United States.\n\nShe served as plaintiff in over 30 federal and state lawsuits concerning abortion rights. She was a key plaintiff in the case NOW v. Scheidler, which charged abortion opponents with using violence, intimidation, and extortion to put women's clinics out of business.\n\nNARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina annually offers the Susan Hill Award to people who are leaders in reproductive health and rights in North Carolina.\n\nOpposition\n\nHill faced a great amount of scrutiny over her pro-choice views, specifically from anti-abortion activists. She received many death threats, and had to wear a bulletproof vest to work every day because of the threats of violence.\n\nIn 1993, a Florida doctor at one of Hill's clinics, David Gunn was killed by a protester. In 2009, Hill's close friend Dr. George Tiller was killed by an anti-abortion extremist. Hill said Tiller's words inspired her to continue her work in women's rights. When Hill asked Tiller why he had not retired in the face of increasing harassment, he said \"Because I can't leave these women.\"\n\nDeath\n\nHill died January 30, 2010 at a hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina after a battle with breast cancer. She was 61 years old.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSusan Hill Award, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina \nGuide to the Susan Hill Papers, 1976-2003, Duke University\n\n1948 births\n2010 deaths\nAmerican abortion-rights activists\nMeredith College alumni",
"The Atonement Child is a 1997 novel by the American author Francine Rivers. It deals with the themes of unwanted pregnancy and abortion.\n\nPlot introduction\nDynah is a young Christian girl at a Bible college when rape shatters her life. The resulting pregnancy and reactions from her family and friends may in turn shatter her faith. As her pro-life fiancé suddenly finds abortion acceptable, and her pro-life school informs her that she will be expelled unless her pregnancy disappears, she is forced to wonder about their views of the world, what God has said in the Bible, and of her own unsteady pro-life views. At home she finds her family torn apart as her mother admits to an abortion before she had Dynah that made her incapable of having children for several years. She also learns that her grandmother was forced to have an abortion for \"health reasons\". Dynah is eventually driven to isolate herself so that she can make the decision on her own. As her mother's \"Atonement Child\", Dynah must come to the decision on whether or not to have her own \"Atonement Child\".\n\n1997 American novels\nNovels by Francine Rivers\nAmerican Christian novels\nNovels about rape\nNovels about abortion"
] |
[
"Nadine Dorries",
"Abortion time limits",
"What were her views on abortion time limits?",
"an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.",
"What was the experience?",
"Dorries has said she witnessed \"botched\" abortions on two occasions,",
"Was she successful in lowering the point at which an abortion can be performed?",
"Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.",
"What was her reaction to that?",
"In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill",
"What did the amendment say?",
"Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy.",
"Was this successful?",
"Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233.",
"Did she try again?",
"I don't know.",
"Was there anything else interesting about her abortion views?",
"My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life.\""
] |
C_f2689620104d4ab6a2c8719b0d2c8944_1
|
Does she plan to keep pursuing this issue?
| 9 |
Does Nadine Dorries plan to keep pursuing abortion issue?
|
Nadine Dorries
|
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection: "Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place." Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate: "Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point." In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided." Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems. Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 but later withdrew her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed. Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee. Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed. On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill. In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life." CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.
Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.
In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, and patient safety. In May 2020, she was advanced to Minister of State. During Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with The Times in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.
Career
From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.
In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. She founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.
Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."
Early parliamentary career
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005. She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group. A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use." In 2008, she won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award.
Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005 later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.
Abortion time limits and counselling
Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way
forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.
On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the General Election for Mid Bedfordshire, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.
Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Daily Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".
In 2012, she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".
The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".
The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".
George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.
Reality TV and temporary suspension
Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative Chief Whip, Sir George Young, nor the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the Party Whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.
The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. Dorries met George Young on 27 November, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.
On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative Whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.
Shortly after regaining the Whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.
Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on I'm A Celebrity... had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in The Independent at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on I'm a Celebrity... in the register of members' interests.
Employment of family members
In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?”
Criticism of fellow Conservative MP
In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".
Election court petition
On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.
Burka ban
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the Daily Telegraph. As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."
Brexit
In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of prime minister David Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Buzzfeed reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that Buzzfeed made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."
In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".
Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety at the Department of Health and Social Care.
On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.
In May 2020, Dorries was promoted to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety.
On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.
In November 2020, she attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2021, Dorries defended the Government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay-offer.
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".
Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.
In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".
Author
It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.
Her first novel, The Four Streets, which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.
Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described The Four Streets as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It’s much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of The Times.
Personal life
Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".
Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC, but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton FC and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.
Honours
She was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Notes
References
External links
Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman? | profile Guardian profile of Dorries
The Blog of Nadine Dorries official site
"The Columnists: Nadine Dorries", ConservativeHome
Mid Bedfordshire Conservatives
Meet the MP: Nadine Dorries, BBC News, 28 November 2005
1957 births
Living people
English people of Irish descent
Politicians from Liverpool
21st-century English women
21st-century British women politicians
British anti-abortion activists
British Protestants
British Secretaries of State
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English nurses
British women bloggers
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
| false |
[
"Rent-a-Kid is a 1995 American comedy film. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, and Matt McCoy. It was directed by Fred Gerber.\n\nPlot\nCliff Haber (Tony Rosato) runs an orphanage, and decides to go on a vacation. He has his father, Harry (Leslie Nielsen), run the orphanage while he is away. Harry has a rental store and decides that it would be a good idea to rent out orphans to prospective adoptive parents after he hears Cliff's testimony on how hard it is for him to find parents for the orphans he takes care of. Meanwhile, as Cliff is away, he gets a bigger idea by overhearing a couple at a Mexican restaurant, Russ and Valerie Syracuse (Matt McCoy and Sherry Miller), arguing over the issue of wanting to have children.\n\nThrough enough persuasion from Harry and giving it thought on their own, they decide to rent all three Ward children, Brandon (Amos Crawley), Kyle (Cody Jones), and Molly (Tabitha Lupien). A couple, the Lachmans, come to the orphanage wanting to adopt a girl. They find and choose Molly which they tell Cliff and he spreads on to Harry, and as he gives the news to Molly, she is not happy, because she does not want to leave Kyle and Brandon. So, to try and fix the issue, they attempt to set out to behave as good as they can, so that Russ and Valerie will fall in love with them enough to want to keep them. But their plan ends up failing now and again. But even through all the pros and cons that Russ and Valerie face dealing with them for ten days, at the very last moment, they decide to adopt them. Meanwhile, Harry has been trying to find ways to keep his renting out orphans idea covered up from Cliff, knowing how eccentric he considers him to be for it. But due to a forum that he leaves out on the office table by a phone which Cliff happens to stumble on, when he returns at the end of the renting period, the attempts fail at the last moment, and he goes and scolds Harry outside the apartment building that Russ and Valerie live in, accusing him of being overly insane, but changes his mind, when he finds out that his plan worked.\n\nCast\nLeslie Nielsen as Harry Haber\nChristopher Lloyd as Lawrence \"Larry\" Kayvey \nMatt McCoy as Russ Syracuse \nSherry Miller as Valerie Syracuse \nTabitha Lupien as Molly Ward \nAmos Crawley as Brandon Ward\nCody Jones as Kyle Ward\nTony Rosato as Cliff Haber\nMichael Anderson Jr. as Mr. Nicely\n\nAccolades\nIn 1996, Ron Ramin won a CableACE Award for best original score.\n\nSequel\nThe film spawned a sequel, Family Plan (1997). Nielsen and Rosato reprise their roles as Harry and Cliff Haber respectively.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1995 films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\n1995 comedy films\nAmerican comedy films",
"Congressional Dish is a podcast hosted by Jennifer Briney and focuses on reporting about the United States Congress from a non-partisan perspective. A typical episode will focus on one bill or issue related to Congress.\n\nThe show has no advertisements, instead using a value-for-value funding model that relies on listeners contributing voluntary donating the amount of value to the show that they received. The model comes from Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak who use the same model on the No Agenda podcast. The model allows Briney to stay free of corporate influences and be accountable instead to the listeners.\n\nThe topics of the podcast generally focus on what Briney finds interesting at the time that is not being covered by the mainstream media. She learns most of the material for her show from Congressional hearings. Briney also does not identify politically with any political party and tries to keep the show non-partisan. Despite this Briney identifies corporate influence in politics as the major issue today and tries to spotlight when she encounters cases of it.\n\nHistory\nJennifer Briney had been interested in politics since 2003 when she saw the launch of the Iraq War from Bonn, Germany where she was studying at the time. She noticed how people in Germany seemed much more knowledgeable of the war than those in the United States which led to her becoming involved more politically. Briney started the podcast in 2012 after she had was unsure of her career path and wanted a more fulfilling job. She had been watching C-SPAN and noticed that people were not aware of a large portion of congressional activity. She initially tried to read every bill passed by Congress under the impression that is what Members of Congress had to do, she no longer does this but instead reads all bills passed into law, she says that it helped her learn about how Congress works.\n\nIn 2015 Briney did an AMA on Reddit that reached the front page of the site about her podcast. In 2018 Briney went on RT America's The World According to Jesse and in 2019 went on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to discuss the podcast. She has also been on The Young Turks and The David Pakman Show. Briney has had a number of guests on her podcast such as Jack Abramoff, a lawyer from Wolf-PAC, and a congressional staffer.\n\nSee also \n\n Political podcast\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Jenifer Briney's Twitter\n\nAudio podcasts\nPolitical podcasts\n2012 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death"
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
What kind of illness did O'Neill have?
| 1 |
What kind of illness did Eugene O'Neill have?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| true |
[
"Streetheart is the self-titled and fifth studio album by Canadian rock band Streetheart, released in 1982. The album features some of the band's best known songs, including What Kind of Love is This, Snow White, and Look in Your Eyes. Streetheart would prove to be the band's most successful album; in 2009 Streetheart would be certified Double Platinum in Canada (in excess of 200,000 copies sold).\n\nTrack listing\n\nAll songs are written by Kenny Shields, Ken Sinnaeve, Daryl Gutheil, and Jeff Neill\n\n \"Without Your Love\" – 5:03\n \"Mad as Hell\" – 3:40\n \"Miss Plaza Suite – 5:39\n \"Wired\" – 3:13\n \"What Kind of Love is This\" – 3:48\n \"Snow White\" – 3:55\n \"Look in Your Eyes\" – 4:49\n \"Ain't in No Hurry\" – 5:00\n \"One More Time\" – 4:33\n\nPersonnel\n\nStreetheart\n\n Kenny Shields – lead vocals, percussion\n Daryl Gutheil – keyboards, backing vocals\n Jeff Neill – guitar, backing vocals\n Ken 'Spider' Sinnaeve – bass\n Herb Ego – drums\n\nProduction\n\n George Semkiw – producer, engineer\n Paul Bonish – assistant engineer\n Ralph Watts – engineer\n Terry DiMonte and Tom Powell – art direction\n Deborah Samuel – band photography\n Russ Mitchell – lyrical arrangement\n\nReferences\n\nStreetheart (band) albums\n1982 albums",
"Elizabeth Grace Neill (née Campbell; 26 May 1846 – 18 August 1926) was a nurse from New Zealand who lobbied for passage of laws requiring training and national registration of nurses and midwives; in 1901, New Zealand was the first country in the world to introduce such laws. The nursing experience she received during her early life inspired her to reform many aspects of the nursing practice, and her experience as a factory inspector led her to instigate other social reforms.\n\nEarly life \nElizabeth Grace Neill was born 26 May 1846 in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was the oldest daughter of nine children born to James Archibald Campbell and Maria Grace of Barcaldine. Neill's father was a retired colonel of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and he was also a deputy lieutenant of the county of Argyllshire and colonel of the militia in that area. Maria Grace was Campbell's second wife. In Campbell's household, discipline and intelligence were valued highly. Tall and red-headed, Elizabeth Neill was a very intelligent child and received a strong education. She was schooled partly at home and partly at a private school in Rugby. Her desire was to study medicine, which she undoubtedly would have done well at, but her father completely disapproved of her doing that. Instead she became a paying probationer nurse in St. John's House Sisterhood in London. This institution supplied nursing staff to both King's College Hospital and Charing Cross Hospitals. Elizabeth Neill easily completed her training in general nursing and midwifery. She then became the lady superintendent at the Pendlebury Hospital for Children near Manchester. She stayed there for two years until she met Dr. Channing Neill, whom she eventually married much to her father's dismay. He believed Dr. Neill was well below his daughter's social class. Neill had her mind made up, however, and married Dr. Neill anyway which resulted in her father casting her out of the family. The couple moved to Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, where they had their first and only son, James Oliver Campbell Neill.\n\nCareer \nNeill's husband moved to Queensland and set up a medical practice; in 1886, when Neill was thirty years old, she and their four-year-old son joined him there. Two years later, her husband died, and Neill turned to journalism to make a living. She was a sub-editor of the Boomerang and a freelance journalist for the Brisbane Daily Telegraph and the Courier. A year later she was appointed by the Queensland Government to a Royal Commission on working conditions for shop and factory workers. Combined with her work as a journalist, her knowledge of the problems associated with giving charitable aid led to her appointment in 1893 as the first female factory inspector in New Zealand. She was then also given a job as assistant inspector in the department in charge of hospitals, asylums and charitable aid. As only the third person working in that department, Neill had a huge workload and a lot of stress. However, it provided the opportunity for her to greatly influence that area of health care practice. Once another doctor, Frank Hay, was able to take over that position, however, Neill devoted herself to a project that would provide suitable nursing service for all of New Zealand.\n\nContributions \nNeill came up with the idea to require nurses to be registered to be able to practice. She knew this would protect the public and also the profession from unqualified people mal-practicing. She helped Dr. McGregor to draft a bill for a Nurse's Registration Act, and in 1901 it was finally passed by Parliament and was the first bill of its kind. The bill required nurses to have three years of training, a state examination, and a state register. While this fixed the problems with general practising nurses, it still did not require anything from midwives. It was imperative that something be established to train midwives in New Zealand. However, since there were only a few schools in New Zealand that trained for midwifery, this was a more challenging bill to pass. It was then put on Neill to create not only a curriculum for the midwifery training, but to also establish state maternity hospitals in which the training could occur. Her goal was to have hospitals that were for mothers, managed by women, and doctored by women. The hospitals were created for only a certain class of women, however. Only the respectable wives of working men could go there. Neill had no pity for the destitute woman, because Neill herself was a widow raising a child. Also, allowing destitute women into the hospitals would undermine the status of them, so they were excluded. Neill faced much opposition from doctors who thought that these hospitals would threaten their own incomes and control of the system. Finally, the Midwives Registration Act was introduced to Parliament by Richard Seddon in 1904. Seddon then initiated a set-up for the first state maternity hospital which would serve as a lying-in hospital for wives of the working class and as a training school for midwives. It was up to Neill to find a way to equip a suitable house within three weeks to set up this hospital. She was able to do so, and the first hospital opened on Rintoul Street, Wellington in June 1905. It was named St Helens Hospital in honour of Seddon, whose birthplace was in Lancashire, England. After this significant event in New Zealand's history, maternity hospitals began opening all over the country such as St Helens Hospitals in Dunedin (1905), Auckland (1906), and Christchurch (1907). These founding hospitals have played an important role in developing good care for maternity patients.\n\nLater life \nNeill did not confine herself to New Zealand. In 1889 she was the principal speaker in the nursing section during the Congress of the International Council of Women in London. Due to her impact at this congress, she was made an honorary member of the Matron's Council of Great Britain. After that she served on a committee that drafted the constitution and bylaws for the International Council of Nurses. In 1901 she once again used her knowledge of social conditions to investigate the administration of charitable aid in Sydney for the government of New South Wales. Neill retired from her position with the New Zealand government and joined her son who had moved to the United States. However, her health continued to decline, so both she and her son moved back to New Zealand in 1909. There she resided until World War I, where she served as sister in charge of the children's ward at Wellington Hospital. After a long period of illness, she died on 18 August 1926, crippled and blind.\n\nThe Grace Neill Memorial Library was established at the nursing postgraduate school in Wellington in memory of Neill's contributions to New Zealand and nursing. The women's hospital at Wellington Hospital is called the Grace Neill Block.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Photograph of Grace Neill, Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref PAColl-4156-07-001\n\nScottish nurses\nNew Zealand nurses\nScottish emigrants to New Zealand\n1846 births\n1926 deaths\n19th-century New Zealand people\nNew Zealand women nurses\nWellington Hospital Board members"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What kind of illness did O'Neill have?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last"
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
How long did he suffer from this disease?
| 2 |
How long did Eugene O'neill suffer from severe Parkinsons-like tremors in his hands?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
write during the last 10 years of his life;
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| true |
[
"Anat Blumenfeld is an Israeli research biochemist at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.\n\nBlumenfeld discovered a chromosome responsible for the serious disease Familial dysautonomia which affects the nerves of fetuses. About 100 families in Israel of Ashkenazi Jewish origin have one or more children with the disease, and they suffer from nausea, high blood pressure, and some food entering their lungs. Dr. Blumenfeld says the disease was discovered about 40 years ago, but researchers did not know what caused it and whether it was genetic. She collected blood specimens for three years from the affected families and checked all their chromosomes and identified No. 9 as causing the disease. Apart from the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where Blumenfeld works, the test is now used only in New York.\n\nSee also\nHealth care in Israel\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nIsraeli biochemists\nLiving people",
"Adolphus Hailstork’s “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes” is a cantata for a tenor soloist in three sections.\n\nBackground \nAccording to the 1997 music score, Hailstork composed this piece in memory of Undine Smith Moore. The instrumentation includes a flute, oboe, B flat clarinet, bassoon, F horn, C trumpet, trombone, timpani, strings, and percussionist. “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes” is S.A.T.B. for a chorus, and features a tenor soloist in all three sections of the composition. The title of this composition originates from Psalm 121, which discusses trust in the Lord, for He will keep you from all harm.\n\nSections\n\nSection 1: \"I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes\" \nThe lyrics of this piece is taken directly from Psalm 121 (KJV).\n\nSection 2: \"How Long?\" \nThe lyrics of this section is inspired by the text of Psalm 13 (NEB). The last verse, in which the Soprano and Alto voices sing “I will lift up mine eyes” aids with the transition into Section 3 of the composition.How long, O Lord? How long?How long, O Lord, will Thou forget me? How long will Thou hide Thy face from me?How long? How long must I suffer anguish in my soul and grief in my heart?How long, O Lord? Look now and answer me, O Lord.Give light, O Lord, give light to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help.\n\nSection 3: \"The Lord is My Shepherd, Alleluia\" \nSimilar to the first section of the cantata, the lyrics of “The Lord is My Shepherd, Alleluia” originate from Psalm 23 (KJV). This piece features rhythmic and legato singing. A beautiful blend of Soprano and Tenor voices begin the piece, setting the tone and creating an aura of peace and contentment.\n\nReferences \n\nVocal musical compositions"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What kind of illness did O'Neill have?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last",
"How long did he suffer from this disease?",
"write during the last 10 years of his life;"
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
Is that what killed him?
| 3 |
What killed Eugene O'Neill?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
problems (including depression and alcoholism)
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| true |
[
"is a manga by . There are a total of five volumes in this series. The first was published in English by Tokyopop on October 10, 2006. The second volume of this series was released by Tokyopop on February 13, 2007. Judas is cursed for his sins to kill six hundred and sixty six (666) people to regain his humanity. However, he is forbidden human contact and has no corporeal body. In order to kill, he uses his slave, Eve, to kill for him. Every time Eve's blood is spilled, Judas comes out and forces Eve to \"say his prayers\", in other words, kill. However, despite being forced to commit such heinous acts, Eve is also forced to dress like a girl. Judas had mistaken him for girl when they had first met, and he has forced Eve to dress like a girl. Sometime along the course of their strange relationship, they meet a professor, who joins them.\n\nPlot\nMizuki is conversing with Sorahito about where people go when they die with him responding \"no they go to Eden\". Eden becomes a referring place during the course of the Manga and finally introduces Eve the character whom Judas is attached to. Judas is The spirit of Death and apostle who betrayed Jesus. His curse is to kill 666 people so he may gain his humanity it is implied that they have been together for some time and have taken many lives. When Sorahito becomes obsessed with finding \"Eden\" he tries making Mizuki join him so they can go to \"Eden\" together. Eve who is really a boy and confused to be a girl all the time including Judas which is explained that when they first met Judas confused Eve for a girl so now he makes him wear girls' clothes, confronts Sorahito and tries changing his mind but Sorahito tries killing Eve. In response Judas is summoned and combine their powers and kill Sorahito. Later Mizuiki meets Dr. Hibuki who is a doctor and becomes desperate for Eden too. Hibuki is visited secretly by a bald man who gives him power. When Hibuki is killed a strange necklace is found where Judas says \"Damn Peter! What the hell is he creating me? The hell!!\". Later Mizuki meanwhile has been researching on what Eden actually is and the \"Holy Council\" when she asks Judas about it Judas only says \"Do not interfere\". Eve then tells Mizuki of a man whom Judas was attached to and who may hold the answers to everything. This man is in New York. The FBI arrive to arrest him but the man kills all of the agents including destroying the helicopters. The man, revealed to be Zero Maschaitto then talks about \"opening the doors to Paradise\".\n\nZero meets with the bald man, Peter. Peter commands Zero to do battle with Judas and to take back what he took from Zero. Zero departs with Peter saying \"what terror there will be\". Mizuki, Eve and Judas and Kugiku Mizuki's friend get a visitor who is a friend of Mizukis. She is revealed to be Sorahito's sister and Mizuki decides to tell her want happened to him however they are drawn by a mysterious force. Judas is the only one not affected and it turns out Zero is the cause for their kidnapping. Zero says that he will take everything from him and take back what was taken from him by Judas. Zero reveals that Peter plans to resurrect the twelve apostles and together open the gates of Eden. The one who betrayed Christ is revealed to be Judas himself - the historical figure. Zero aims to kill Eve who without, Judas will turn to nothing but suddenly he is freed and Judas and Eve combine their powers and take on Zero. They have a fierce battle and it is revealed that Peter who is the apostle Peter plans to clone Judas but this is foiled. In the end Zero departs and Peter summons the first of the revelations of John, Rain and hail mingled with blood which falls onto the earth. At a cafe it is revealed that Saints John and Philip have been revived and soon after the waitresses speak to them they are killed by John And Philip uses his time powers to switch the clocks back making it possible for the second seal to be opened \"A great mountain of Fire Erupting\" Mt.Fuji is blown up and thousands upon thousands are killed as a result. As the Apostles are resurrecting and Peter laughs in delight, Judas and Eve have had enough and declare that they're going to \"pity the fuck out of them\" thus concluding volume 2.\n\nMizuki is tricked into going to a house from an email which said it was from Sorahito who says that he is alive and wishes to speak with her. In reality however St. Thomas tricked her and wishes to \"try\" her for her sins. Eve and Judas run to the house and find that Thomas has begun the trial. Thomas reveals to them that Mizuki when shes was a girl had \"untolerable feelings\" for sorahito when though taking vows of chastity, Mizuki would in the night go to his room and kiss him and finally betrayed him to Judas (who killed him in volume 1). It is also shown when Thomas tried to judge Eve that Eve has killed a great number of people, Judas then called Eve the \"Other Angel of Death\".\n\nExternal links\nTokyopop's Judas page\n Review by Comic Book Bin\n Review by Sequential Tart\n Review by Mania.com\n Viz Media's Judas page\n\n2004 manga\nKadokawa Shoten manga\nMythology in comics\nShōnen manga\nTokyopop titles\nViz Media manga",
"Petar Tudzharov also known as \"Dzharo\" is a fictional character and one of the main antagonists on the BNT crime series Pod Prikritie. He is portrayed by Mihail Bilalov. He was a ruthless Bulgarian gangster who initially served as the loyal member of Bulgarian MDFOC, ex-inspector and wealthy businessman.\n\nEarly life \nBefore he became a Bulgarian crime boss, Tudzharov was an inspector in MDFOC (Main Direction for Fighting Organized Crime) and colleague of inspectors Emil Popov, Mironov and Stolarov. After the incident with some criminals and the deaths of inspector Stolarov and Mironov, Tudzharov left the police end started his own criminal group.\n\nDescription\n\nSeason 1\nIn the first season Tudzharov was a Bulgarian crime boss. His mistresses was Silvia Veleva better known as Sunny. He went with her on business dinners with his partners in crime. After the incident with bug, Dzharo ordered Ivo Andonov to kill her, but, instead, Ivo hid her in his house and didn't tell Tudzharov what happened with her. After her departure, Dzharo releases a story about her alleged trip to Milano and, later, he got a new mistress, his lawyer Boyana.\n\nSeason 2\nIn season two, Dzharo's relationship with Ivo became a little strained, especially when Boyana informed him that Sunny is still alive. Tudzharov again ordered her murder and sent another assassin. The assassin shot and killed her outside of court and later got hit by the car and died instantly. Tudzharov ordered Ivo's murder too which had to look like a car accident, but the attempt failed and Ivo killed his assassin. In season 2 finale, after Martin planted the evidence in his place, Tudzharov and Boyana were arrested. She was shortly after that released and he was brought to the court. When Popov found out about the evidence, Martin offered himself as an anonymous witness and, with his testimony, Tudzharov was sentenced on 37 years of prison.\n\nSeason 3\nIn season 3, after Tudzharov was arrested and sentenced, Ivo reunited his crew, The Hook, Adriana, and Zdravko Kiselov, also known as The Hair, and started his own criminal group. Tudzharov, who was in prison, got a new cellmate - a fat prisoner whom Popov sent wired to get a confession from Dzharo, but Dzharo found a microfone. In Episode 3.4, Andonov ordered his murder, but the attempt failed and Tudzharov was hospitalised and, later, sent to house arrest because he paid the judge. After Anvonov's mother Cveta was killed, he became a prime suspect in her murder, but police didn't arrest him because they realised that he had nothing to do with her murder, although, in fact he had everything with her murder - he ordered The Twins to kill her. After the attempt murder on Martin and one of The Twins failed, which Dzharo didn't know, he ordered murder of his lawyer Boyana, too, and, while he listened \"The Magic Flute\", an unknown assassin killed Boyana. In season 3 finale, Popov found out that Dzharo killed Asya Panteva and reporter Elica Vladeva and ordered a search for him and APB. Dzharo escaped to one hotel, but, there, people who live there found out who he is on news and he was forced to run again. While attempt to start an electric sleds, Ivo, The Hook and Tisho found him and Ivo revealed to him who was the mole all the time. After the brief conversation in which Ivo revealed that what he knows about Dzharo's daughter Nia, Dzharo shot Ivo and ran on electric sleds. The Hook released Martin to go for him. Martin chased Dzharo and, later, the shots were heard, but it is left unknown who was shot.\n\nSeason 4\nIn season 4 premiere, Tudzharov was seen in Turkey which means that he succeeded in crossing the border of Bulgaria. There, he dealt a business with his friend Faruk, whose younger son is killed by Ivo. in Episode 4.9, the police break on film shooting where Dzharo was. Dzharo started to run with his partner and they entered the car and escaped, but, during the drive, the car overturned and partner fainted and Dzharo managed to escape, but was injured. Injured, Dzharo was brought in Ivo's house to recover. In Episode 4.10, one of Faruk's men shot on Popov, but killed his daughter instead and Popov saw Dzharo leaving from the scene and marked him as the second assassin. In Episode 4.11, Dzharo's daughter, Nia, was abducted by Faruk's men and Dzharo get the order to come alone and replace daughter. Dzharo came, but also, he called the police and success to release his daughter and ran with her. Later, after Popov's daughter was buried, Dzharo came and said Popov his sorry and that he didn't killed her. They had a brief conversation in which is revealed what happened when shot was heard in season 3 finale. Popov let Dzharo go and promised him, if he comes back in Bulgaria, he is never going to stop chasing him. After that, Tudzharov is killed by Popov because Popov thought he ordered his daughter's murder, although, Tudzharov said him he didn't. In season 4 finale, Martin testified that Dzharo pointed a gun on Popov.\n\nSeason 5\nIn season 5 premiere, Dzharo's voice was heard when his daughter, Nia, called the number he left her. On the message to her, it is explained what she has to do. She went in the bank and there, she found her father's legacy. In Episode 5.2, another his message was heard in which it is explained to her what is her legacy left by him.\n\nReferences \n\nFictional Bulgarian people\nFictional murderers\nTelevision characters introduced in 2011"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What kind of illness did O'Neill have?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last",
"How long did he suffer from this disease?",
"write during the last 10 years of his life;",
"Is that what killed him?",
"problems (including depression and alcoholism)"
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
Was his death caused by health problems or suicide?
| 4 |
Was Eugene O'neill's death caused by health problems or suicide?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| true |
[
"Suicide in Nepal () has become a minor national issue highlighted by a series of high-profile suicides in recent years. Ranked 126th by suicide rate globally by the 2015 World Health Organization report, Nepal has an estimated 6,840 suicides annually, or 8.2 suicides per 100,000 people. Suicide is currently the leading cause of death for Nepalese women aged 15–49.\n\nUnderreporting\nThe rate of suicide in Nepal has been reported to be as low as 3.7/100,000 as a result of under reporting caused by issues of legality, social stigma, and logistical problems.\n\nSuicide is illegal in Nepal and is punishable by fines and imprisonment. According to the director of Samanta, a Nepalese organization for women’s rights, \"most families will never report suicide cases as they are afraid of being entangled in police cases.\" In attempts to avoid legal trouble, suicidal patients and their families may avoid going to hospitals for treatment. Even after death, victims of suicide may have their deaths misattributed to avoid legal problems for their families.\n\nFamilies may also avoid reporting suicides due to social stigma and discrimination against people with mental health problems. Despite the recent abundance of articles discussing suicide in Nepal, issues related to suicide are largely avoided, both as the result and perpetuation of a powerful social stigma against mental illness. For women in particular, the under reporting of suicides and suicide-attempts may be caused in part by a \"culture of silence\", especially in cases related to domestic abuse.\n\nFinally, logistical issues pose a threat to accurate reporting and record keeping. According to the Nepal Health Sector Support Programme, due to \"poor record keeping by police and hospitals\" as well as the fact that \"registration systems are inaccurate and of poor quality,\" suicide may continue to be under reported even if social and legal issues were to be resolved.\n\nGender\nIn 2009, the Nepalese Family Health Division's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Study published the \"shocking finding\" that suicide was the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age (15-49). According to the report, \"analysis of verbal autopsy data indicates mental health problems, relationships, marriage and family issues are key factors\" with 21% of suicides among women of reproductive age consisting of women 18 or younger, \"indicating that youth is a factor to be investigated.\" Although the suicide rate for men remains higher almost universally as well as in Nepal (30.1/100,000 for men, 20.0/100,000 for women), Nepal has a relatively high ratio of female:male suicides and stands out as being ranked 17th for male suicide rates but 3rd for female suicide rates. It's worth noting that while male suicide rates are higher, it is estimated that Nepalese women attempt suicide three times more than men do. Additionally, the tie ins to maternal health, domestic violence, and youth have made female suicide a prominent issue. A case study published in the same mortality report exemplifies the type of problems that women may face:\n\nSanju was a 21 years old, illiterate and mother of two children. By her third pregnancy she was anaemic and malnourished, feeling dizzy and weak, but she received no antenatal care. In her third month of pregnancy she was about to travel to her maternal home with her husband, but her relatives stopped her as there was a flood. She went to her room to rest, but when her mother-in-law went to her room an hour later she said she had eaten some medicine for killing lice. Her husband, mother-in-law and neighbour took her to the local medicine shop in their cart, and the pharmacist immediately referred her to the district hospital. The family borrowed money and took her to hospital in a private van, a 25 minute journey. She was admitted to the emergency ward and attended to by the doctor immediately, but died within a few hours. The above account was given by her mother-in-law. However, the female community health volunteer said Sanju suffered from hysteria and was being forced to have an illicit relationship with her father-in-law. She was treated for her hysteria but forced to continue the relationship, and therefore was tense. The FCHV and VHW felt this may have been the reason she committed suicide.\n\nMore indirectly, gender based inequality in Nepal has been suggested as the cause of female suicide in Nepal. The prominence of suicide among women of reproductive age may be as a result of unwanted pregnancies and early marriages. For Nepalese women, being married can come with the cost of leaving one's family and friends, creating a \"perennial cycle of dependence, which may lead some to view suicide as their only option.\n\nNotable cases\n Vishvajit Malla, Malla Dynasty King of Kantipur\n Yogmaya Neupane, Women's Right Activist\n Sungdare Sherpa, Mountaineer\n Bhimsen Thapa, Prime Minister of Nepal\n Bharat Raj Upreti, Supreme Court Justice\nAlok Nembang, Nepali Movie director\nAnil Adhikari (Yama Buddha), Nepali Rapper\nRahul Rai, Nepali Singer\n\nReferences\n\nHealth in Nepal\nWomen in Nepal\nDeath in Nepal\nNepal\nSuicide in Nepal",
"Suicide in Ukraine is a common cause of unnatural death and a serious social issue. In 2009, Ukraine ranked 13th in the world by its total suicide per 100,000 people. Suicide is Ukraine's most common type of injury death. Suicide is a leading cause of death in Ukrainian army (data for 2012; before the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war).\n\nStatistics\n\nSuicide in Ukrainian army \nSuicide is a leading cause of death in Ukrainian Army causing 18% to 50% of all deaths. Long-lasting psychogenic disorders caused by difficulties with Army lifestyle, inability to adopt to the environment and the stress of life are the primary reasons of suicides.\n\nMulticenter Study on Parasuicides did a 1-year monitoring of suicidal behavior among Ukrainian soldiers based on World Health Organization guidelines. The study revealed–\n Average age of suicide attempters was 19.9 years.\n 65% of suicide attempts required hospital treatment, others needed outpatient examination.\n Frequent suicide attempt methods included–\n Hanging (54.5%)\n Cutting (27.3%)\n Jumping from high places (9.1%)\n Overdose of barbiturates or other sedative drugs (9.1%).\n\nNotable Ukrainians who committed suicide \n Oleksandr Kovalenko, professional footballer, committed suicide by jumping from his apartment\n Vasyl Yevseyev, footballer and coach, suicide by jumping\n Mykhailo Chechetov, politician, deputy head and chief whip of Party of Regions, suicide by jumping from his apartment\n\nSuicide prevention \nThe Ukrainian Government and different national and international organizations make individual attempts and initiatives to prevent suicides in Ukraine. Various associations provide help and suggestions to people who are trying to commit suicide.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences \n\nDeath in Ukraine"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What kind of illness did O'Neill have?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last",
"How long did he suffer from this disease?",
"write during the last 10 years of his life;",
"Is that what killed him?",
"problems (including depression and alcoholism)",
"Was his death caused by health problems or suicide?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands"
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
What year did he die?
| 5 |
What year did Eugene O'Neill die?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65.
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| true |
[
"Master of the Die (fl. 1525–1560) was an Italian engraver and printmaker. His year of birth and death are unknown.\n\nThe identity of the Master of the Die is uncertain. He was given this name because he signed his prints with a small die. Some theories to the identity of the artist include Benedetto Verino, Marcantonio Raimondi's son Daddi or Dado, Giovanni Francesco Zabello, or Tommaso Vincidor. What is known is the Master of the Die studied under Marcantonio Raimondi. He worked in the style of Raphael.\n\nReferences\n\nItalian printmakers\nItalian engravers\n16th-century engravers\nDie",
"\"Good Die Young\" is a song by Australian rock band Divinyls, released in July 1984. The single was lifted from the band's second studio album What a Life! and proved to be a moderate success in Australia.\n\nThe music video was shot in various Sydney locations - outside Railway Square next to a famous golf retailer's neon lights, outside George Street cinema complex, and on a building next to Central Station's clocktower.\n\nBackground\n\nDivinyls began recording material for their second album over a two-year span, with Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee writing several songs and working with three different producers along the way. Mark Opitz was the first, having already produced the band's debut album Desperate. However Amphlett and McEntee were not satisfied with his efforts and eventually settled on musician/producer Gary Langan to work on the rest of the album. \"Good Die Young\" was one of the tracks recorded during Langan's run as producer, however a full album did not materialize at that stage and eventually Mike Chapman stepped in to produce the rest of What a Life! as well as the entirety of the band's next album Temperamental.\n\nIn Australia, \"Good Die Young\" was released as the lead single from the album What a Life!, as their previous song \"Casual Encounter\" appeared on their debut album Desperate. However, the American release of What a Life! also included \"Casual Encounter\", therefore making \"Good Die Young\" the second single release in the US.\n\n\"Good Die Young\" charted within the top forty on the Australian singles chart, peaking at number thirty-two. Although the single narrowly missed the top thirty, it was considered a moderate success after the band's previous single \"Casual Encounter\" had only peaked at number ninety-one.\n\nTrack listing\nAustralian 7\" Single\n \"Good Die Young\" - 3:36\n \"9:50\" - 3:10 (considered a rare track as it does not appear on an official Divinyls studio album)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1984 singles\nDivinyls songs\nSongs written by Chrissy Amphlett\nSongs written by Mark McEntee\n1984 songs\nChrysalis Records singles"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What kind of illness did O'Neill have?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last",
"How long did he suffer from this disease?",
"write during the last 10 years of his life;",
"Is that what killed him?",
"problems (including depression and alcoholism)",
"Was his death caused by health problems or suicide?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands",
"What year did he die?",
"on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65."
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 6 |
Other than the severe Parkinsons-like tremors in Eugene O'Neill's hands, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it.
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| 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"
] |
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What kind of illness did O'Neill have?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last",
"How long did he suffer from this disease?",
"write during the last 10 years of his life;",
"Is that what killed him?",
"problems (including depression and alcoholism)",
"Was his death caused by health problems or suicide?",
"O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands",
"What year did he die?",
"on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: \"I knew it. I knew it."
] |
C_ce8d2a911af5437fa5fd1b17109a40ad_0
|
What was he referring to?
| 7 |
What was Eugene O'Neill referring to when he whispered "I knew it. I knew it" as he was dying?
|
Eugene O'Neill
|
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER
|
Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
|
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club
| true |
[
"George Matthews is the current radio play-by-play announcer for the Charlottetown Islanders of the QMJHL. He was the original radio play-by-play announcer for the Columbus Blue Jackets, a National Hockey League franchise. He held this position since the team's inaugural 2000–01 season through the 2012–2013 season. He hails from Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada.\n\nEntering his 37th season of hockey broadcasting, he is known for his passionate broadcast style and also his penchant for rhyme.\n\nHe has stated that he will perform limited broadcasting duties during the 2013–2014 season on the Blue Jackets Radio Network through their flagship station WBNS (FM 97.1).\n\nIn addition to calling play-by-play action, he was also a regular contributor to the \"Between the Pipes\" radio show that airs weekly on WBNS during the hockey season.\n\nCatch phrases\nMatthews' trademark is his ability for improvised rhyme. Some examples:\n\nGeneral\n \"Hey hey, whaddya say?\" - in reference to an exceptional play.\n\nReferring to Skaters\n \"He boot scoots it...\"\n \"What a steal, that's the deal!\"\n \"Jumpin' Jack Flash, Rick Nash!\"\n \"Ka-Ching It's CASH, RICK NAAAAAAASH!\"\n \"Nick! (Nikolai Zherdev) with the flick for the Jackets!\"\n\nMatthews is also known for referring to a goal as \"burying the biscuit\" or \"burying the stash\" (specifically when referring to left winger Rick Nash).\n\nReferring to Goaltenders\n \"Holy Moley, what a goalie!\"\n \"Return to sender! What a 'tender!\"\n \"Jim dandy, Mr. Handy!\"\n \"Goodness Gracious, Leclaire's Sensatious!\"\n \"Norrena is showing to be a whopper of a stopper tonight!\"\n \"Lightning quick with the leather\n\nExternal links\n Matthews to step away from full-time radio duties\nBlue Jackets Radio/TV Personalities\nGeorge Matthews: True Blue\n\nAmerican color commentators\nColumbus Blue Jackets announcers\nLiving people\nPeople from Summerside, Prince Edward Island\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Three acres and a cow was a slogan used by British land reform campaigners of the 1880s, and revived by the distributists of the 1920s. It refers to an ideal land holding for every citizen.\n\nThe phrase was invented by Eli Hamshire in letters written to Joseph Chamberlain and Jesse Collings during the early 1880s. Hamshire did, in fact, own . Collings used the phrase as a slogan for his 1885 land reform campaign, and it became used as part of the political struggle against rural poverty. He became derisively known as \"Three Acres and a Cow Collings.\"\n\nChamberlain used the slogan for his own \"Radical Programme\": he urged the purchase by local authorities of land to provide garden and field allotments for all labourers who might desire them, to be let at fair rents in plots of up to of arable land and up to of pasture.\n\nIn What's Wrong With the World, G. K. Chesterton used the phrase to summarise his own distributist opinions.\n\nSee also\n \"Forty acres and a mule\", referring to what was granted to some emancipated slaves during the American Civil War.\n\nReferences\n\nBritish political phrases"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television"
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
What movies has he stared in?
| 1 |
What movies has Jimmy Buffett stared in?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| true |
[
"The psychic staring effect (sometimes called scopaesthesia) is a supposed phenomenon in which humans detect being stared at by extrasensory means. The idea was first explored by psychologist Edward B. Titchener in 1898 after students in his junior classes reported being able to \"feel\" when somebody was looking at them, even though they could not see this person. Titchener performed a series of laboratory experiments that found only negative results. The effect has been the subject of contemporary attention from parapsychologists and fringe researchers from the 1980s onwards, most notably Rupert Sheldrake.\n\nThe feeling is a common one, being reported by over two thirds of the students questioned in a 1913 study.\n\nOrigin \nPsychologist Edward B. Titchener reported in 1898 that some students in his junior classes believed that they could \"feel\" when they were being stared at from behind, and a smaller proportion believed that by staring at the back of a person's neck they could force them to turn around. Both phenomena were said to occur in public places such as classrooms and public halls. His students described the feeling as \"a state of unpleasant tingling, which gathers in volume and intensity until a movement which shall relieve it becomes inevitable\".\n\nTitchener rejected the telepathic explanation. He instead suggested that when a subject experienced the feeling that they were being watched and turned to check, a second person who already had the subject in their field of vision might notice the subject starting to turn their head, and shift their gaze to the subject. From the subject's perspective, they have turned their head and can now see a person looking directly at them, from which they may incorrectly assume that the person had been staring at them all along. Titchener attributed the \"tingling\" effect to the subject focusing their attention on their own neck and the thought that somebody might be staring at it, observing that a person concentrating their attention on their own knee or foot will make that part of the body feel more sensitive. He conducted laboratory experiments with people who claimed to be able to sense the stares of others and those who claimed to be capable of \"making people turn round\", finding in both cases that the results were \"invariably\" negative.\n\nLater studies\nA 1913 study by John E. Coover asked ten subjects to state whether or not they could sense an experimenter looking at them, over a period of 100 possible staring periods. The subjects' answers were correct 50.2% of the time, a result that Coover called an \"astonishing approximation\" of pure chance. Coover concluded that although the feeling of being stared at was common, experimentation showed it to be \"groundless\". He suggested that the \"tingling\" sensation described by Titchener was an example of motor automatism.\n\nA 1983 experiment using closed-circuit television cameras to watch the subjects reported a 74% success rate, although later research suggested that the randomness of the sequences had not been controlled for. An attempt to recreate this study in 2009 used closed-circuit cameras and skin conductance monitoring to detect a reaction from the subjects, and required starers to play attention-demanding computer games when not staring at the subjects, in order to suppress any effects of thinking about the starer while not looking at them. Subjects were required to indicate whenever they felt that they were being watched. The experiment \"failed to demonstrate a clear cut effect\".\n\nParapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake carried out a number of experiments on the effect in the 2000s, and reported subjects exhibiting a weak sense of being stared at, but no sense of not being stared at. Sheldrake summarized his case in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, saying that he found a hit rate of 53.1%, with two subjects \"nearly always right, scoring way above chance levels\". Sheldrake's experiments were criticised for using sequences with \"relatively few long runs and many alternations\" instead of truly randomised patterns, which would have mirrored the natural patterns that people who guess and gamble would tend to follow and may have allowed subjects to learn the patterns implicitly.\n\nWriting after another skin conductance test in 2004 showed a negative result, Lobach & Bierman concluded that \"the staring paradigm is not the easily replicable paradigm that it is claimed to be\".\n\nGaze detection\nVarious studies have explored the reliability with which humans can visually detect gazes from other individuals. Brain imaging has shown that the brain cells which are activated when a test subject can see that they are being stared at are distinct from the cells activated when the starer's eyes are averted away from the subject by just a few degrees . It is theorized that the ability to precisely detect the target of a starer's gaze has conferred an evolutionary advantage by improving threat detection capabilities, as well as facilitating nonverbal communication. Compared to the eyes of other animals, the uniquely visible and well-defined sclera and iris of human eyes provides further evidence of its evolutionary importance for the species, and are thought to have developed as humans became more reliant upon complex communication for survival and reproductive success.\n\nThese mental processes occur subconsciously and utilize information from peripheral vision; this may contribute to the sensation that a \"sixth sense\" alerted the person being gazed upon.\n\nSee also\n Eye tracking\n Situation awareness\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Rupert Sheldrake, Papers on the Sense of Being Stared At. Accessed 2008-05-28.\n David F. Marks and John Colwell (2000). The Psychic Staring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization. Accessed 2008-05-28.\n\nPsychic Staring Effect, The",
"Ryan Gentles is an American actor who has worked with Tyler Perry studios in several stage plays and movies including Madea Goes to Jail playing Nate, Sonny's boss and Vanessa's boyfriend. He also made an appearance in the movie version of \"Madea's Family Reunion\" as a stripper. He appeared In the stage play What's Done in the Dark and was Jennifer Hudson's love interest in her hit video \"Spotlight\". Gentles made his theatrical debut in E. Lynn Harris' play Not a Day Goes By in which he played Zurich, a sports agent. Gentles has also appears in stage plays by John Ruffin and TJ Hemphill and is a regular celebrity trainer and personality on the annual Tom Joyner Fantastic Voyage.\n\nGentles has worked with Tyler Perry studios in several stage plays and movies including Madea Goes to Jail playing Nate, Sonny's boss and Vanessa's boyfriend. He also made an appearance in the movie version of \"Madea's Family Reunion\" as a stripper. He appeared In the stage play What's Done in the Dark and was Jennifer Hudson's love interest in her hit video \"Spotlight\". Gentles made his theatrical debut in E. Lynn Harris' play Not a Day Goes By in which he played Zurich, a sports agent. Gentles has also appears in stage plays by John Ruffin and TJ Hemphill and is a regular celebrity trainer and personality on the annual Tom Joyner Fantastic Voyage.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male stage actors\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,"
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
What was his role in the film?
| 2 |
What was Jimmy Buffett's role in the film Hoot ?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| false |
[
"Oliver James (born Oliver James Hutson; 1 June 1980) is an English actor, musician, singer, and songwriter.\n\nActing career\n\nJames trained at the Guildford School of Acting and made his acting debut in the made-for-television short film School's Out as Dean. He then appeared in an episode for the BBC television series The Afternoon Play.\n\nIn 2002, James was cast as the role of Ian Wallace in the teen romantic comedy What a Girl Wants. The film was directed by Dennie Gordon and co-starred Amanda Bynes. The movie was released in 2003, to mixed critical reception, and a moderate box office with worldwide earnings of $50,732,139.\n\nIn 2004, James was cast to portray the role of Jay Corgan in New Line Cinema's musical drama film Raise Your Voice. The film which was directed by Sean McNamara and co-starred Hilary Duff. The film received negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb earning worldwide $14,867,514.\n\nIn 2006, James signed on for the BBC drama television series The Innocence Project portraying the role of Nick Benitz. The eight-episode first season received negative reviews from critics. Ratings were very poor and the BBC chose to pull the series midway through season one, with the show not being renewed for a second season.\n\nIn 2009, James portrayed the role of Ben in Paramount Home Entertainment's Direct-to-DVD sequel Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling. The film received negative reviews.\n\nIn 2011, James appeared in a leading role in the TV film Roadkill. In 2012, he appeared in the TV film Black Forest.\n\nMusic career\nShortly after appearing in The Afternoon Play, James joined a boy band produced by Simon Fuller. He quit the band as soon as he was cast in What A Girl Wants. For What A Girl Wants, he learned to play the guitar and sang the songs \"Long Time Coming\" and \"Greatest Story Ever Told\" which appear on the film's soundtrack. He played the acoustic guitar and sang the last song in Raise Your Voice.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1980 births\nAlumni of the Guildford School of Acting\nEnglish male film actors\nEnglish male television actors\nEnglish male singers\nLiving people\nPeople from Ottershaw\n21st-century English singers\n21st-century British male singers\n21st-century English male actors",
"Ernest Lee Thomas (born March 26, 1949) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Roger \"Raj\" Thomas on the 1970s ABC sitcom What's Happening!!, and its 1980s syndicated sequel, What's Happening Now!!, and for his recurring role as Mr. Omar on Everybody Hates Chris.\n\nEarly career and What's Happening!!\n\nThomas was born in Gary, Indiana, and began his professional acting career as a Broadway actor, appearing in the 1974 revival production of Love for Love and in the 1975 revival of The Member of the Wedding. Both shows starred actress Glenn Close. Shortly after he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a TV/film actor. In the fall of 1975 he received a role on an episode of The Jeffersons. It was during the taping of the show that he learned of an audition for a sitcom loosely based on the 1975 film Cooley High. Thomas auditioned, won the lead role, and filmed the television pilot, which tested poorly. The concept was quickly reworked into a more light-hearted approach to the source material, and became known as Central Avenue, before settling on the title What's Happening!!. Thomas was the only cast member retained from the pilot, and took the lead role of Roger \"Raj\" Thomas. The new \"summer series\" became a ratings hit, and was expanded to a full series, airing from 1976 to 1979.\n\nDuring the show's run, Thomas was involved in other film and TV projects including Baretta, The Brady Bunch Hour and the film A Piece of the Action starring Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. During the first season of What's Happening!!, Thomas was one of the final two actors to be considered for the lead role of Kunta Kinte in the breakthrough miniseries Roots, which eventually went to LeVar Burton. Thomas would go on to play the smaller role of Kailuba in the miniseries.\n\nWhat's Happening Now!! and later career\nAfter a six-year hiatus from TV and film acting, Ernest resumed his role as Roger \"Raj\" Thomas in the sequel What's Happening Now!! The show aired in first-run syndication from 1985 to 1988.\n\nSince the show's cancellation Thomas has guest starred on a number of popular TV dramas and sitcoms including In the Heat of the Night, (which co-starred his TV wife Anne-Marie Johnson, from What's Happening Now!!), The Parent 'Hood, Martin (which starred his What's Happening Now!! co-star Martin Lawrence), Soul Food, The Steve Harvey Show, All About the Andersons and more recently Just Jordan. He has also appeared in a number of films, including a supporting role in Malcolm X and a cameo in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. He later had a recurring role as funeral director, Mr. Omar, on the TV sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. He had an uncredited guest spot as Ernest T \"Bass\" on the TV show Are We There Yet? It was titled, \"The Satchel Paige Episode\" and had him playing a Flavor Flav type personality.\n\nIn 2012, Thomas was cast in rocker/horror movie director Rob Zombie's 2012 film The Lords of Salem. In 2016, he was in a comedic body horror short film called Earworm.\n\nHe has an eye condition called amblyopia.\n\nFilmography\n1976-1979: What's Happening!! (TV Series) - Roger 'Raj' Thomas\n1977: A Piece of the Action - John\n1985-1988: What's Happening Now!! (TV Series) - Roger 'Raj' Thomas\n1991: Kiss and Be Killed - Det. Ross\n1992: Malcolm X - Sidney\n2003: The Watermelon Heist - Jailer\n2003: Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star - Ernest Thomas\n2005-2009: Everybody Hates Chris (TV Series) - Mr. Omar / Funeral Director / Radical Man\n2007: Paroled - Royce Henderson\n2009: Funny People - Yo Teach Principal\n2012: The Lords of Salem - Chip McDonald (Frankenstein and the Witchhunter) (uncredited)\n2013: The Pastor and Mrs. Jones - Pastor\n2014: Basketball Girlfriend - Lenny\n2014: Revenge - Neville\n2014: The Slimbones - Uncle AB\n2015: Mega Shark vs. Kolossus - Admiral Titus Jackson\n2015: Chocolate City - Diner Manager\n2016: '79 Parts - Priore\n2016: Stop Bullying Now: Live from the Big House - Himself\n2016 - Earworm (short)\n2017: Chocolate City: Vegas Strip - Mr. Williams\n2017: The Gods - Olympus\n2017: Two Wolves - Olivier\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1949 births\nLiving people\nMale actors from Indiana\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male stage actors\nAmerican male television actors\nAfrican-American male actors\n20th-century American male actors\n21st-century American male actors\nPeople from Gary, Indiana\n20th-century African-American people\n21st-century African-American people"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,",
"What was his role in the film?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
What TV shows has he been in?
| 3 |
What TV shows has Jimmy Buffett been in?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011.
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| false |
[
"TV Time (formerly TVShow Time) is a tracking platform and social television network for TV and movies, available in app and desktop forms. Using TheTVDB as a data source, it allows users to store information about their media consumption and leave reviews.\n\nHistory\n\nFeatures \n\nEvery registered TV Time user has their own profile. When a user opens the app, four tabs appear at the bottom of the screen: Shows, Movies, Discover and Profile.\n\nShows \n\n Watch List: A list of show posters or thumbnails with episode descriptions (depending on a user's preference). Here, users can see what shows to watch next, what they haven't seen in a while, and their watch history based on which shows they've added to their Watch List. In the poster view, a yellow progress bar that illustrates the user's progression on a show. This tab also allows one to mark an episode as ‘watched.’ In the thumbnail view, users have the option to swipe right or press the check mark next to the episode description. In the poster view, users click the check mark within the episode pages.\n Show Pages: Once an episode is marked as watched, individual episode pages reveal comments from the TV Time community and gives the ability to rate the episode, express feelings, and vote for favorite characters. There is a no spoiler rule in place, so unless a user has marked the episode as watched, this content will remain hidden.\n Upcoming: The ‘Upcoming’ section works as a reminder for future episodes of shows a user has followed. Users can also opt in to receive push notifications an hour before a show airs.\n\nMovies \n\n Watch List: Similar to the Shows tab, a list of movie posters appears. Here, users can movies they have added to their Watch List. This tab also allows one to mark an episode as ‘watched’ by going into the movie and selecting the check mark next to the movie description.\n Movie Pages: Movie pages allow users to rate the film, express feelings, and vote for favorite characters. The “no spoiler rule” applies here as well if a user has not marked the movie as ‘watched,’ they won't see comments left by the TV Time community.\n Upcoming: The ‘Upcoming’ list features movies a user has added to their Watch List that have yet to be released.\n\nDiscover \n\nThe app offers an explore feature which allows users to discover new shows according to different criterion, such as genre and popularity.\n\n Search & Discover More: The search bar lets users find shows, movies, and other users within TV Time. If a user isn't sure what to watch next, they have the option of using the ‘Discover More’ feature. This section has genre filtering capabilities, show status options (ongoing or ended), and trending series (what's popular or the “most binged”).\n Recommendations: The ‘Top Shows for You’ field displays programming that a user may want to add to their Watch List based on genres and shows that they enjoy.\n Trending: ‘Trending Shows & Movies’ features what's currently popular in TV Time based on the number of user comments within the last 3 days while ‘Recent Activity’ displays series that a users’ in-app friends are following.\n\nProfile \n\n Stats: The top of a user's profile features certain stats, such as how much time the user has spent watching TV a.k.a. their “TV Time.” This clock shows an estimated amount of time a user has spent watching television. The accumulated time is based on the episodes marked as watched and their duration. This is also available for movies in the “Movie Time” section. The top also features a number of episodes and movies watched by a user, which is based on the number of episodes a user has marked as watched. Another ‘Stats’ option at the bottom of the profile allows a user to dig deeper with graphs, badges, and rankings.\n Show & Movie Lists: A user's profile displays recent shows/films that they've tracked. A profile may also show off lists of favorite shows/films if the user has chosen to do so. Users also have the option to get creative with “custom lists” that can combine both movies and television series.\nBadges: Another characteristic of the profile is the display of badges. Badges are rewards that every user gets when using TV Time. They are divided in two main categories: discovery badges and addiction badges. Discovery badges are given when the user makes use of the site's features for the first time. Addiction badges, on the other hand, are given to the user when he or she interacts with TV shows.\n\nPlugins \nTV Time has a public API, which allows users to create their own plugins. A plugin for Kodi that marks episodes as watched automatically after it has been watched on it was released on February 15, 2015. Another plugin for Google Chrome that integrates several features to the web browser had been released a few weeks before.\n\nLanguages \nTV Time is currently available in thirteen languages: Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. Users are able to filter their preferred languages in the app so they only see comments and reactions from the community in the languages they choose.\n\nReception \n\nMedia outlets noted interest in TV Time'''s service as an analytics tool in the era of streaming, which makes it difficult to prove a television series' popularity and viewership since streaming services do not necessarily make that information public. In 2018, Variety cited the website's TVLytics data as one of the reasons for Netflix to sign a $100M deal with Warner Bros. Television to maintain the American sitcom Friends on its online library until 2019. The same year, United Talents Agency signed a deal with TV Time that granted them access to their data, in an effort to gain a deeper understanding into the content audiences were engaging with the most and how they were consuming it. According to TV Time CEO Richard Rosenblatt this would \"[allow them to] recognize what shows are potentially going to be popular, what shows people will be binging, what moments really engaged the fans.\"\n\nSome television personalities such as Álvaro Morte and Omar Sy have showed interest in TV Time's statistics on social media, the former reacting to his character on the Spanish television series Money Heist being featured in the Top 10 Most Voted Character of 2020 and the latter reacting to the French television series Lupin being number 1 on the Most Binged TV Series list on the week of its release.\"Omar Sy on Twitter: @netflix\" Retrieved on June 17, 2021.\n\n Awards \n\nIn 2021, TV Time won \"Best Entertainment App\" at The Webby Awards in the \"People's Voice\" category.\n\n Statistics \n\n Most followed television series \n\nAs of January 1, 2022, the most followed television shows on TV Time are:\n\n Most followed films \n\nAs of June 18, 2021, the most followed films on TV Time were:\n\n Binge Reports TV Time offers weekly reports of the \"most binged\" TV series on their platform which are made public on the app's social medias. For the series to be considered as \"binged\" by a user, 4 episodes of it must have been watched in a row in the same day. The website calls this a \"binge session.\" Since 2018, TV Time publishes the top 10 most binged series during the year. In 2019, Lucifer was reported to be the number 1 series for the longest in the report's history, with 8 consecutive weeks.\n\nThe following chart shows the \"most binged\" series of every year as reported by TV Time.\n\n Streaming Originals \n\nOn September 21, 2021, TV Time announced its new Streaming Originals report. Similar to The Binge Report, the Streaming Originals report shows a list of the most tracked series every week, but only the ones whose provider is a streaming service.\n\n Database TV Time uses TheTVDB's database as a source of information for all shows and movies in its library. Initially an independent website, The TVDB was acquired by TV Time'' in 2019. Users can edit information about TV series such as characters, airing dates, networks and more on this database if they have a registered account.\n\nSee also \n\n Tvtag, a similar website also dedicated to television, now shut down.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n \n \n \n \n\nTelevision websites\nAndroid (operating system) software\nInternet properties established in 2011\nIOS software\nSocial cataloging applications\nRecommender systems\nFrench entertainment websites",
"Iya Traore (born 1986) is a Guinean footballer and freestyler who has been featured in Guinness World Records three times. He is currently based in Paris where he features on TV shows, reality TV shows, music videos and commercials.\n\nEarly and personal life\nTraore started as a local goalkeeper in his village, Kebeya in Guinéa. After his dad returned from Europe, he decided to move out to study in Conakry, Guinéa, where he truly discovered his passion for football. In Conakry, he joined the football club Ibrahim FC and won many trophies with them.\n\nFootball career\nIn 2000, Traore arrived in Paris where he played for football clubs such as ESP, Paris FC, Paris Saint Germain and at same time helped his father, an African art merchant.\n\nFreestyle career\n\nTraore has rebranded onto the global stage what freestyle has to be which gave him documentary opportunities and awards from across the Globe. He has performed in 2014 in Shakira's La La La Music video for the world cup in Brazil. He has performed in over 40 countries including China, France, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Italy, US, Brazil etc.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\n1986 births\nGuinean footballers\nAssociation footballers not categorized by position"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,",
"What was his role in the film?",
"I don't know.",
"What TV shows has he been in?",
"He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011."
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
Has he been in any other TV shows?
| 4 |
Aside from Hawaii Five-O Has Jimmy Buffett been in any other TV shows?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog.
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| true |
[
"Die schnelle Gerdi is a German television series. The first season premiered on German TV in 2002 and has been on TV in many other countries.\n\nSee also\nList of German television series\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1989 German television series debuts\n1989 German television series endings\nTelevision shows set in Munich\n2002 German television series debuts\n2002 German television series endings\nTelevision shows set in Berlin\nGerman-language television shows\nZDF original programming",
"A1 News Channel (formerly TV Ballkan, A1 TV, A1 Report) was an all news private television station in Tirana, Albania founded by media mogul Koco Kokedhima and owned by Shekulli newspaper.\n\nHistory\nA1 Report started as TV Ballkan in 2002 but quickly changed name to A1 TV. During that time period, A1 tried to attract a broader audience through shows such as Papparazzi and Hienat. It was also the only station with purely economic TV shows like A1 Biznes and Kapital. News is updated in real-time 24 hours a day. Since January 2007, A1 Televizion started airing movies and it probably has the latest and most famous movies of any local television in Albania, although it rarely advertises the fact, to comply with its 'new channel' image.\n\nIn the next few years, it changed logos several times and became A1 Report affiliated with Shqiptarja.com newspaper. In 2016, Carlo Bollino withdrew from this joint-venture and opened his own channel named Report TV. As a result, Kokedhima re-branded the channel as A1 News Channel.\n\nA1 Report TV's broadcasting license has since been revoked by the Albanian Audiovisual Media Authority.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\nTelevision in Albania\n\nDefunct television networks in Albania\nTelevision channels and stations established in 2002\nMass media in Tirana\n2002 establishments in Albania"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,",
"What was his role in the film?",
"I don't know.",
"What TV shows has he been in?",
"He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011.",
"Has he been in any other TV shows?",
"Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing \"Caribbean Amphibian\" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog."
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
Was he in any other films or tv shows?
| 5 |
Other than Elmopalooza Was Jimmy Buffett in any other films or tv shows?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| true |
[
"Majid Ghannad is an Iranian television presenter, producer, and director. He is mostly known for his works in Iran local TV for children, like Fitile Jom'eh Tatileh, School to school and Ghelgheli. He is also known as Uncle Ghannad among children.\n\nEarly life\nMajid born in 1954 in Khorramshahr. His father died when majid was 7 years old. After that time, his mother, who was a nurse, was his only maintainer.\n\nHe was interested in theater since he was studying in elementary school. In 1975, his teacher, Mohammad Abuyi, who was a writer helped Majid to get into Abadan local TV art works. After that time he became more eager about this work.\n\nWhen he was studying at high school, he was working for his uncle, who was a carpenter. However, some times he had worked for other people in restaurant.\n\nCareer\nHe started his work in TV shows when he was 28 years old in Abadan local TV (1976). When the Iran–Iraq War began, he continued his work as a director in Isfahan local TV and in 1982, he worked for Khoramabad local TV for a year. After that he came to Tehran to continue his higher education. Meanwhile, he was working for IRIB 2 as a television presenter and director. His weekend shows started from 1983. He got his bachelor's degree in acting from University of Tehran.\n\nHe has also worked for House of Cinema, Jam jam TV.\n\nFitileh was one of his most famous shows, which continued for eight years (2003-2011). In 2011, he stopped working on the show as the presenter and another host was brought to replace him. However, he still served as the producer.\n\nPersonal life\nHe has two daughters and a son.\n\nHe goes through physical examination every 8 months and visits a psychologist whenever he needs to talk.\n\nFilms and shows\nHe has created plenty of shows, films, series and exhibitions. Some of the most famous ones are listed below:\n\nSchool to school (120 episodes)\nPlay, Happiness, Watching (80 episodes)\nWeek's show (26 episodes)\nCharkhunak (52 episodes)\nDistance (short film)\nFlower and flower pot (104 episodes)\nHourglass (104 episodes)\nCousins (26 episodes)\nHappiness game (52 episodes)\nMr. Ghurghur (26 episodes)\nPalam Pulum Pilim (26 episodes)\nTwins (26 episodes)\nAll of my daughters (Film)\nCity in children's control (Film)\nFitile Jom'eh Tatileh (for 8 years at weekends)\nScarecrow yourself\n\nSee also\nDariush Farziaei\nAdel Ferdosipour\nKamran Najafzadeh\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nPeople from Khorramshahr\n1954 births\nIranian television presenters\nIranian television producers\nIranian television directors\nIranian radio and television presenters",
"Amit Mistry (12 January 1974 – 23 April 2021) was an Indian actor drama, film and television actor. He had appeared in a number of tele serials, drama as well as films. He is mostly known for his appearance in Tenali rama, A Gentleman and Saat Phero Ki Hera Pherie.\n\nBiography \nMistry was born in 1974. He acted in theatre, TV shows and films. He was well known in Gujarati theatre. He played a role in Shor in the City , Saat Phero Ki Hera Pherie, Tenali Rama , Maddam Sir and in the Amazon Prime web series Bandish Bandits.\n\nHe died on 23 April 2021 in Andheri, Mumbai following cardiac arrest.\n\nFilmography\n\nTV shows\n\nWeb series\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nIndian male stage actors\nIndian male film actors\nMale actors in Hindi television\n1974 births\n2021 deaths\n21st-century Indian male actors\nPlace of birth missing\nMale actors in Gujarati-language films\nMale actors in Hindi cinema\nGujarati people"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,",
"What was his role in the film?",
"I don't know.",
"What TV shows has he been in?",
"He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011.",
"Has he been in any other TV shows?",
"Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing \"Caribbean Amphibian\" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog.",
"Was he in any other films or tv shows?",
"Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park."
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
Did he write any music for other movies?
| 6 |
Aside from Elmopalooza Did Jimmy Buffett write any music for other movies?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival.
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| true |
[
"The AARP Movies for Grownups Award for Best Buddy Picture is one of the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards presented annually by the AARP. The award honors the best film from a given year that is about friendship between people over the age of 50. The award for Best Buddy Picture was first given at the 7th AARP Movies for Grownups Awards. Other new awards that year were Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.\n\nNo award for Best Buddy Picture was given for movies premiering in 2011, 2017, or 2018. In 2020, AARP listed five nominees for Best Buddy Picture from 2019, but did not award any of them.\n\nWinners and Nominees\n\n2000s\n\n2010s\n\n2020s\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican film awards\nAARP",
"In 2004 Filmzene.net was founded and is Hungary’s first and only website that exclusively deals with film music. The site is run by fans, who are passionated by their love for film music.\n\nHistory \nThe beginning:\n\nIn 2003 a group of film music loving friends decided that they will develop a much needed, niche, Hungarian website that would specifically focus on the film music genre, but in a way everyone can relate to. They did this, back then, because most websites which discussed films, completely or almost completely left out (one sentence here or there, many times without naming the composer) any references to and/or discussion of the film’s music, despite it being one of the indispensable ingredients to a movie. The website primarily focus’ on symphonic, electronic and other instrumental film music, but there is also write ups about many a film soundtrack.\n\nThe goals of the editors was to develop a website that is constantly updated and is a place to learn about film music and its composers and producers, in the hopes that more people will get to know and love the genre. The editors are passionate about introducing the composers to audiences. The website not only features an ever-expanding artistic biography section, but also many interviews with film music composers. In the spirit of diversity, on Filmzene.net you can find interviews with; organists, conductors, producers, record company executives, and others who may be attached to the genre in some way.\n\nFilmzene.net is a website which is entirely nonprofit, where the editors have been consistent, who are – and where the content is – not affiliated with any film distribution company, or any other organization. The content editors do not describe themselves as film music critics, they are everyday lovers of the genre, who got into this to share their opinions, but who have found that this site has since grown past expectations. Every week the number of introductory articles grows, besides the classics they introduce many new releases, but they regularly write articles about an artist's lifetime achievements, from today's, the near past's and from the Golden Age of Cinema's talents.\n\nFrom concept to today:\n\n“December 25th 2003 - the test version of the site goes live.” This sentence could be found on the domain during the test run, which was only visible to the editors. For months, they worked on perfecting the site. During that time the design and the concept was decided upon. In the beginning of July in 2004, 23 biographies and 48 critics were uploaded to Filmzene.net. The “under construction” banner was removed and the site went live. The columns are constantly being updated and more columns were added along the way. \nColumns include film soundtracks, biographies and news and besides these articles about known film composer's non-film works and their concerts in Hungary and abroad, work done by artists close to the movie music genre, record company executives and studios, and many more.\nThe next step was to talk to the artists working in the music industry. Thanks to this, since the starting efforts, it was made possible that regular published interviews have become an integral part of the website, as are articles about old and new albums.\nFilmzene.net has interviewed such known artists as; Brian Tyler, David Arnold, Graeme Revell, John Debney, John Ottman, John Powell, Lisa Gerrard, Mark Isham, Marvin Hamlisch, Mychael Danna, Philip Glass and Ramin Djawadi.\n\nTo date, 2017, there are 1,300 reviews, 60 interviews, and 140 biographies published on the site. There are 55 articles about the collaborations between the composers and the directors of a film, 50 about the music of movie franchises and TV shows. The Legends of Film Music column has writings about 22 composers. There are discussions about 6 studios and 13 record companies. Content also included on the site is 6 short histories of the awards given out to film music creators and the list of nominees and winners.\n\nInterviews \n\n Aaron Zigman\n Aenima CGS\n Alex Wurman\n Andrew Lockington\n Andy Vajna\n Anthony Lledo\n Asche & Spencer\n Atli Örvarsson\n Austin Wintory\n Balázs Zságer\n Brian McNelis\n Brian Tyler\n Carl Davis\n Dan Foliart\n Daniel Licht\n David Arnold\n David Julyan\n Deborah Lurie\n Edmund Choi\n Elia Cmiral\n George S. Clinton\n Graeme Revell\n Hollerung Gábor\n J. Peter Robinson\n James Dooley\n Jeff Beal\n Jeff Danna\n Jeff Rona\n John Debney\n John Frizzell\n John Hunter\n John Ottman\n John Powell\n Lisa Gerrard\n Mark Hinton Stewart\n Mark Isham\n Marvin Hamlisch\n Mateo Messina\n Matteo Zingales\n Michael V. Gerhard\n Mychael Danna\n Nathan Barr\n Paul Leonard-Morgan\n Pedro Bromfman\n Péter Wolf\n Philip Glass\n Ramin Djawadi\n Richard Marvin\n Róbert Gulya\n Robert Townson\n Robin Esterhammer\n Roque Banos\n Starr Parodi\n Timothy Williams\n Tina Guo\n Varnus Xavér\n Víctor Reyes\n\nThe Legends of Film Music \n\n Alex North\n Alfred Newman\n Angelo Badalamenti\n Basil Poledouris\n Bernard Herrmann\n Dave Grusin\n David Raksin\n Dimitri Tiomkin\n Erich Wolfgang Korngold\n Franz Waxman\n Georges Delerue\n John Barry\n Lalo Schifrin\n Leonard Rosenman\n Marvin Hamlisch\n Maurice Jarre\n Max Steiner\n Michel Legrand\n Nino Rota\n Philip Glass\n Rózsa Miklós\n Victor Young\n\nComposers, Directors, Collaborations \n\n Alan Menken & the Walt Disney Studios\n Alfred Hitchcock\n Brian De Palma\n David Cronenberg & Howard Shore\n David Fincher\n David Lean & Maurice Jarre\n Elmer Bernstein\n Jack Ryan Adaptations\n James Cameron\n Jan De Bont & Mark Mancina\n Jerry Goldsmith\n Joe Dante & Jerry Goldsmith\n John Milius & Basil Poledouris\n John Powell's Scores for Animation Movies\n John Williams - Beyond the Scores\n John Williams - Away from Spielberg\n Jon Amiel & Christopher Young\n Julie Taymor & Elliot Goldenthal\n Kenneth Branagh & Patrick Doyle\n M. Night Shyamalan & James Newton Howard\n Martin Scorsese\n Michael Bay\n Michael Kamen\n Miklos Rozsa\n Oliver Stone\n Randy Newman & the Pixar Animation Studios\n Richard Donner\n Ridley Scott\n Ridley Scott & Hans Zimmer\n Robert Zemeckis & Alan Silvestri\n Roland Emmerich & David Arnold\n Roland Emmerich & Harald Kloser\n Scores for Christmas Movies\n The Scores for the Pixar Animation Studios\n Scores for Romantic Movies\n Ron Howard\n Ron Howard & James Horner\n Sergio Leone & Ennio Morricone\n Scores for Sport Movies\n Stephen King Adaptations\n Stephen Sommers\n Steven Spielberg & John Williams\n Tim Burton & Danny Elfman\n Tony Scott & Harry Gregson-Williams\n Wolfgang Petersen\n\nMovie & Television Series \n\n A Nightmare on Elm Street Movies\n Alien Movies\n Back to the Future Trilogy\n Batman Movies\n Battlestar Galactica TV Series\n Chicago Fire TV Series\n Chicago Hope TV Series\n Cold Case TV Series\n Dexter TV Series\n Die Hard Movies\n Fantastic Four Movie Series\n Final Destination TV Series\n Hannibal Movies \n Harry Potter Movies\n Hellraiser Movies\n Jason Bourne Movies \n Jurassic Park Movies\n Knight Rider TV series\n Lethal Weapon Movies\n Lost TV Series\n Mad Max Movies\n Masada TV Mini-Series\n Mission: Impossible Movies\n Pirates of the Caribbean Series\n Planet of the Apes Movies\n Predator Movies\n Rambo Movies\n Robert Langdon Movies\n RoboCop Movies\n Rush Hour Movies\n Scream Movies\n Spartacus TV Series\n Species Movies\n Spider-Man Movies\n Star Wars Saga\n Strike Back TV Series\n Superman Movies\n Terminator Movies\n Terra Nova TV Series\n The Avengers Movies\n The Expendables Movie Series\n The Hobbit Trilogy\n The Mummy Movies\n The Tudors TV Series\n The X-Files TV Series\n Tom & Jerry Animation Movies\n Transformers Movies\n True Justice TV Series\n Twilight Saga TV Series\n X-Men Movies\n\nScores for Same Subject \n Conan\n Hollywood and the Presidents of the USA\n Jane Eyre adaptations\n Robin Hood\n Shark Movies\n Sherlock Holmes\n The Three Musketeers\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n Interviews (in English)\n\nHungarian music websites"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,",
"What was his role in the film?",
"I don't know.",
"What TV shows has he been in?",
"He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011.",
"Has he been in any other TV shows?",
"Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing \"Caribbean Amphibian\" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog.",
"Was he in any other films or tv shows?",
"Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.",
"Did he write any music for other movies?",
"Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival."
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
What music did he write for the show?
| 7 |
What music did Jimmy Buffett write for the show Don't stop the carnival ?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| false |
[
"Stephen Rennicks is an Irish musician and film score composer based in Dublin.\n\nAs a boy, Rennicks predominantly listened to and sang what he described as \"Irish Protestant Baptist gospel music, choruses and hymns\", and later claimed it was an influence on his process of learning harmony. During the later years of the 1980s, Rennicks was a member of a band called the Prunes, which traveled through nightclubs in France and Germany playing punk music.\n\nRennicks worked with director Lenny Abrahamson on What Richard Did (2012). For Abrahamson, he later served as music director for the 2014 film Frank, where he was tasked to write songs that were a hybrid of pop and experimental rock music. Rennicks was inspired by musicians he met while in the Prunes, wrote the score and supervised the recordings of his original songs. For Frank, Rennicks won the award for Best Technical Achievement – Music at the 2014 British Independent Film Awards, and was nominated for Original Score at the 12th Irish Film & Television Awards.\n\nAbrahamson and Rennicks collaborated again on the 2015 film Room. As a Canadian co-production, Rennicks was nominated for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Score in January 2016. In April, he then won for Original Music at the 13th Irish Film & Television Awards.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\n21st-century Irish people\nIrish film score composers\nMusicians from Dublin (city)\nPeople educated at The High School, Dublin\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Bill Russell (born 1949) is an American librettist and lyricist. Among his stage musicals are Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens and Side Show, which was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Musical.\n\nCareer\nRussell's first musical to be produced is Fortune, which ran Off-Broadway at the Actors' Plahouse from April 27, 1980 to November 23, 1980. Ronald Melrose wrote the music, with Russell writing the book and lyrics. The musical director and arranger was Janet Hood; they have gone on to write several musicals together. The musical concerned four performers who were headed to be stars. According to The New York Times reviewer, John Corry, it \"marked the maturity of the gay musical\", and he commended the \"literate\" lyrics.\n \nRussell wrote the book and lyrics for the song cycle Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens, with music by Janet Hood, which originally ran Off-Off-Broadway in 1990 and in the West End in 1993. It played a benefit concert in 2001.\n\nHe wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Pageant with Frank Kelly; the music is by Albert Evans, and conception by Robert Longbottom. The musical, which has an all-male cast that plays beauty queens premiered Off-Broadway at the Blue Angel in 1991, and subsequently ran Off-Broadway at New World Stages in 2013, as well as engagements in London (2000) and Australia.\n\nHe wrote the concert adaptation of the musical Call Me Madam for the New York City Center Encores! staged concert series, which was presented in February 1995 and starred Tyne Daly.\n\nRussell write the book and lyrics for the musical Side Show (music by Henry Krieger), which ran on Broadway in 1997.\n\nHe wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Up in The Air, with music by Henry Krieger, conceived and directed by Amon Miyamoto. It premiered at the Kennedy Center in February 2008. The musical is suggested by a Japanese story, about Boonah, the tree-climbing frog.\n\nHe wrote the lyrics and book with Jeffrey Hatcher for the musical Lucky Duck, with music by Henry Krieger. It premiered Off-Broadway at the New Victory Theater in March 2012. The musical starts where the fairy tale \"The Ugly Duckling\" ends, \"showing what happens once one becomes beautiful.\" It premiered at TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, California, in 2000, then called Everything's Ducky.\n\nHe wrote the book and lyrics for the musical The Last Smoker in America, with music by Peter Melnick. The musical opened Off-Broadway in August 2012.\n\nRussell and Janet Hood have teamed again to write the musical Unexpected Joy, which received private readings in March 2012. The musical is the story of four women and was directed by Sheryl Kaller.\n\nHonors and awards\nRussell received a 1998 Tony nomination for Side Show for Best Book and shared a nomination with composer Henry Krieger for Best Score. The show was nominated as Best Musical.\n\nEverything's Ducky received the Will Glickman Award for Best New Play (in the San Francisco Bay Area) in 2001 and Garland Awards (presented by \"Backstage West\") for Best Score, Set and Costumes. He has also received two Commendation Awards from the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Theatre Foundation (one in 2000). He received an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters from Morningside College in 2003 and from the Boston Conservatory in May 2007.\n\nPersonal\nRussell was born in Deadwood, South Dakota and raised in Spearfish, South Dakota. His grandparents were cattle ranchers. He attended Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa for two years with a major in theater before transferring to the University of Kansas. He came out in an interview with the Rapid City Journal. He married Bruce Bossard in 2009, and they had been a couple for 30 years before that.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nInternet Off-Broadway Database\n\nAmerican musical theatre librettists\nAmerican musical theatre lyricists\n1949 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Deadwood, South Dakota\nPeople from Spearfish, South Dakota"
] |
[
"Jimmy Buffett",
"Film and television",
"What movies has he stared in?",
"Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot,",
"What was his role in the film?",
"I don't know.",
"What TV shows has he been in?",
"He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011.",
"Has he been in any other TV shows?",
"Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing \"Caribbean Amphibian\" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog.",
"Was he in any other films or tv shows?",
"Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.",
"Did he write any music for other movies?",
"Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival.",
"What music did he write for the show?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_c5ce7c07549b45a8bbc2d97e8f8e73a8_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 8 |
In addition to Jimmy Buffetts Roles in television and movies Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
|
Jimmy Buffett
|
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc. In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the season two of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018 episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana". Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park. In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar. CANNOTANSWER
|
Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon.
|
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he currently owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth as of 2017 of $900 million.
Early and personal life
Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather and these experiences would go on to influence his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys in 1964. He began playing guitar during his first year at Auburn University before continuing his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He is an initiate of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville, breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs.
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969; they divorced in 1971. Buffett spent years working as the first mate on the yacht of industrialist Foster Talge on the Petticoat III in Key West while perfecting the "Caribbean Rock n' Roll" genre. Buffett and his second wife, Jane (née Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney (Sarah was almost named Sara Loraine, after her grandmother, but was named Sarah Delaney after her grandfather), and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Sag Harbor, New York, and West Palm Beach, Florida. They separated in the early 1980s, but reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in Saint Barts, a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. He spends part of the summer traveling about the East Coast on his sailboat. An avid pilot, Buffett owns a Dassault Falcon 900 that he often uses while on concert tour and traveling worldwide. He has also owned a Boeing Stearman, Cessna Citation, Lake Amphibian, and Grumman Albatross.
His father died May 1, 2003, at the age of 83 and then his mother passed away four months later on September 25.
In 2015, Buffett spoke at the University of Miami's graduation ceremony and received an honorary doctorate in music. Wearing flip flops and aviator sunglasses, he told graduates, in a paraphrase of his song "The Pascagoula Run", that "it's time to see the world, time to kiss a girl, and time to cross the wild meridian."
Buffett is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Music
Music career
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "Gulf and Western" (or tropical rock). Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett's third album was 1973's A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of "Mack the Knife" on Sinatra's final studio album, "Duets II". In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number-one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett's album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.
Buffett continues to tour every year, although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius' merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Buffett's rendition of "Silver Wings" on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep"; released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, eight are Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin'" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020 Buffett released Songs You Don't Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
Musical style
Buffett began calling his music "drunken Caribbean rock 'n' roll" as he says on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term "Gulf and Western" to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett's sound as a "special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett's swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly." The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett's musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett's music as "blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as "trop rock" or "Gulf and western"."
Other performers identified as Gulf and Western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and Western performers include Norman "the Caribbean Cowboy" Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris.
Fans
Parrot Head or parrothead is a commonly used nickname for Buffett fans with "parakeets" or "keets" used for younger fans, or children of Parrotheads. At a Buffett 1985 concert at the Timberwolf Amphitheater in Cincinnati, Ohio Buffett commented about everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and how they kept coming back to see his shows, just like Deadheads. Timothy B. Schmit, then a member of the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term "Parrot Head" to describe them. In 1989, the first Parrothead club was founded in Atlanta. Subsequent Events range from single-act concerts or happy hours to the annual Meeting of the Minds in Key West, Florida, which attracts approximately 5,000 Parrotheads. In 2011, there were 239 Parrothead Club chapters in the United States, Canada and Australia, spanning 3 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces with total membership of almost 28,000. The Pikes Peak Hash House Harriers and Harriettes have an annual Parrot Head Hash weekend hosted by Yeastee Boy and Bread Box.
Writing
Buffett has written three number-one best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on The New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty, published in 1998, went straight to number one on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list, making him one of the few authors to have reached number one on both the fiction and nonfiction lists.
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hardcover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of the two reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley.
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill. The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released on May 13, 2008.
Buffett is one of several popular "philosophers" whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of Northern India.
Film and television
Buffett wrote the soundtrack for, and co-produced and played a role in, the 2006 film Hoot, directed by Wil Shriner and based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, which focused on issues important to Buffett, such as conservation. The film was not a critical or commercial success. Among his other film music credits are the theme song to the short-lived 1993 CBS television series Johnny Bago; "Turning Around" for the 1985 film Summer Rental starring John Candy; "I Don't Know (Spicoli's Theme)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "Hello, Texas" for the 1980 John Travolta film Urban Cowboy; and "If I Have To Eat Someone (It Might As Well Be You)" for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was sung in the film by rap artist Tone Loc.
In addition, Buffett has made several cameo appearances, including in Repo Man, Hook, Cobb, Hoot, Congo, and From the Earth to the Moon. He also made cameo appearances as himself in Rancho Deluxe (for which he also wrote the music) and in FM. He made a guest appearance in the second season of Hawaii Five-0 on CBS in 2011 and returned in April 2013, March 2015, January 2017, March 2018, May 2019, and March 2020 playing Frank Bama. Buffett reportedly was offered a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but declined the offer. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk on a musical production based on Wouk's 1965 novel Don't Stop the Carnival. In the South Park episode "Tonsil Trouble", an animated version of Buffett (but not voiced by Buffett) was seen singing "AIDSburger in Paradise" and "CureBurger in Paradise". Jimmy has also appeared on the Sesame Street special, Elmopalooza, singing "Caribbean Amphibian" with the popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog. Buffett appeared in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in November 2011. He played a helicopter pilot named Frank Bama, a character from his novel Where Is Joe Merchant?. Another character mentioned that he preferred "margaritas"; Buffett's character replied, "Can't argue with you there." He reprised the role with a brief cameo visiting McGarret on the March 30, 2018, episode "E Ho'oko Kuleana".
Buffett made a cameo in the 2015 film Jurassic World, where he is seen holding two margaritas while the dinosaurs are set loose in the park.
In 2017, Buffett was the musical guest on the NCIS: New Orleans episode "Rogue Nation", playing the song "I Will Play for Gumbo" in Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) newly rebuilt bar.
In 2019, he had an extended cameo playing himself in the Harmony Korine film The Beach Bum.
Business ventures
Buffett has taken advantage of his name and the fan following for his music to launch several business ventures, usually with a tropical theme. He opened the Margaritaville Cafe in Key West, Florida, in 1985. He owns LandShark Bar & Grill in Baltimore, Maryland and previously owned Cheeseburger in Paradise Restaurant. As a baseball fan, he was part-owner of two minor-league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the Madison Black Wolf. Buffett has also licensed Margaritaville Tequila, Margaritaville Footwear, and a Margaritaville Foods, including chips, salsa, guacamole, shrimp, chicken, and more. Between his businesses, album sales, and tours, he was estimated by Forbes to earn US$50.5 million in 2017 and to have a net worth of $950 million.
Record labels
In 1993, he launched Margaritaville Records, with distribution through MCA Records. His MCA record deal ended with the release of 1996's Christmas Island and he took Margaritaville Records over to Chris Blackwell's Island Records for a two-record deal, 1998's Don't Stop The Carnival and 1999's Beach House on the Moon. In the fall of 1999, he started Mailboat Records to release live albums. He entered into a partnership with RCA Records for distribution in 2005 and 2006 for the two studio albums License To Chill and Take The Weather With You.
Beer production
In 2006, Buffett launched a cooperative project with the Anheuser-Busch brewing company to produce beer under the Margaritaville Brewing label called LandShark Lager.
Casinos
Margaritaville Casino opened at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May 2013. The center features a restaurant, two bars, a coffee shop, a retail store, and a gaming area.
Football
From May 8, 2009, through January 5, 2010, Sun Life Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium) in Miami, the home of the Miami Dolphins, was named LandShark Stadium pursuant to an eight-month naming rights deal. Buffett also wrote new lyrics for the team to his 1979 song "Fins", which is played during Dolphins home games. Despite Buffett's partnership with the Dolphins, Buffett is a diehard New Orleans Saints fan, having attended the team's first game at Tulane Stadium in 1967 and later had Saints head coach Sean Payton serve as an honorary member of the Coral Reefer Band at a concert in New Orleans on April 1, 2012, in protest of Payton's suspension by the National Football League as a result of the Saints' bounty scandal.
Video games
In 2012, a "Margaritaville Online" game was released by THQ for Facebook. The game was discontinued less than two years later. In 2016, it was announced that Buffett had partnered with FunPlus to develop a new Margaritaville game.
Real estate
Latitude Margaritaville is a $1 billion retirement village planned in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project is a joint venture between Minto Communities and Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, with the development being built on land close to LPGA Boulevard and about a mile to the west of Interstate 95.
As of 2021, the community has sold over 1,000 homes and will have 3,900 homes upon completion. Prices currently range from the low $200,000s to the low $500,000s.
Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings have since announced and began selling in Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head in Bluffton, South Carolina and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Cannabis
In 2018, Buffett teamed with businessman Beau Wrigley and Surterra Holdings, Inc. to license "Coral Reefer" brand marijuana by summer 2019.
Theatrical works
In 1994, Buffett began developing a musical based on Herman Wouk's 1965 novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Buffett wrote the music and lyrics and Wouk wrote the book for the show. Don't Stop the Carnival debuted in Miami, Florida in 1997 to negative reviews from critics. In response, the producers approached Buffett and told him that Wouk needed to be fired and a more experienced playwright needed to rewrite Wouk's script. Buffett refused to remove Wouk from the project and any further productions of the show were canceled. Buffett turned the show into an album that was released in 1998.
A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in May 2017 and ran until July. The show then performed limited runs in New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago, and was well received by critics. The show features a book by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley and uses Buffett's classic songs, some of which he rewrote the lyrics to in order to better fit in the context of the story. The show began previews at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on February 16, 2018 and officially opened on March 15 under the direction of Tony winner Christopher Ashley. The Broadway production received mixed reviews from New York critics. In June that same year, the producers announced that the production would close on July 1 after 29 previews and 124 regular performances. Along with the announcement of the show's Broadway closing, it was announced that a national tour would launch in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 2019.
Charity work
Buffett has been involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, the Save the Manatee Club was founded by Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham. West Indian manatee In 1989, legislation was passed in Florida that introduced the "Save the Manatee" license plate, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. One of the two manatees trained to interact with researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory is named Buffett after the singer. Buffett is also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.
On November 23, 2004, Buffett raised funds with his Surviving the Storm hurricane relief concert in Orlando, Florida, to provide relief for hurricane victims in Florida, Alabama and the Caribbean affected by the four major hurricanes that year.
Buffett performed in Hong Kong on January 18, 2008, for a concert that raised US$63,000 for the Foreign Correspondents' Club Charity Fund. This was his first concert in Hong Kong and it sold out within weeks. Not only did Buffett perform for the groundlings for free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.
On July 11, 2010, Buffett, a Gulf Coast native, put on a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The concert was Buffett's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The concert was aired on CMT television. The 35,000 free tickets were given away within minutes to help draw people back to Alabama's beaches. Buffett played several popular songs including "Fins", "Son of a Son of a Sailor", "A Pirate Looks at Forty" and modified versions of "Margaritaville" (where the lyrics were changed in the chorus to "now I know, it's all BP's fault") and "When the Coast is Clear" (the lyrics in the chorus also referencing the Deepwater Horizon disaster: "That's when it always happens / When greed and crude collide"). The concert featured Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Controversies
The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" on the album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. In 1983, the son of the late entertainer Lord Buckley sued Buffett for $11 million for copyright infringement, claiming that Buffett took parts of the monolog from Buckley's A Tribute to Buckley and claimed it as his own work in "God's Own Drunk". The suit also alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented to the public a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. A court injunction against Buffett prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved, so starting in 1983, Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk", he would say that he was not allowed to play it because of the lawsuit and instead played a song he wrote called "The Lawyer and the Asshole" in which he accuses Buckley's son and lawyers of being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."
In January 1996, Buffett's Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2's Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song "Jamaica Mistaica" for his Banana Wind album based on the experience. The plane from the incident is now on display at Margaritaville Orlando, located at Universal Studio.
Buffett's 1999 song "Math Suks" caused a brief media frenzy. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children's education. Comedian Jon Stewart also criticized the song on The Daily Show during a segment called "Math Is Quite Pleasant".
On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because "there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn't have used." Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a "Parrothead", the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy.
Buffett's luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the "ecstasy" was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.
Concerts and tours
"The Big 8" and standard songs
Before 2003, songs almost always played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8. The "Big 8" were:
"Margaritaville"
"Come Monday"
"Fins"
"Volcano"
"A Pirate Looks at Forty"
"Cheeseburger in Paradise"
"Why Don't We Get Drunk"
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at most shows went from 8 to 10. However, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been reduced to only occasional performances. Other notable songs that are played at many shows are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross", bringing the total number of songs played at the vast majority of concerts since 2004 to 12. In the years 2010–2016, in 262 advertised appearances Buffett performed the song "Margaritaville" 248 times, "Son of a Son of a Sailor" 236, "Volcano" 235, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" 235, "Come Monday" 235, "Fins" 232, "A Pirate Looks at Forty" 232, "Cheeseburger in Pardise" 228, "Five O'Clock Somewhere" 225, "One Particular Harbour" 221, and "Southern Cross" 220. (Many of the appearances had short set lists such as guesting on television shows).
In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, Texas, on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to "play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
Tour accident
On January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore. A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him. And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash. He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr. Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene. Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck.... I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now.... But at first I thought: this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid. Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes. He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency center for treatment and was discharged the next day. Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows. In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda, he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident.
List
A Pink Crustacean Tour (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Tour (1977)
Cheeseburger in Paradise Tour (1978)
You Had to Be There Tour / Volcano Tour (1979)
A Hot Dog & A Road Map Tour (1980)
Coconut Telegraph Tour (1981)
Somewhere over China Tour (with broken leg) (1982)
Homecoming Tour (1982)
The Six-Stop American Tour (1983)
Feeding Frenzy Tour (1984)
Last Mango in Paris Tour (1985)
Floridays Tour / World Tour of Florida (1986)
A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour (1987)
Cheap Vacation Tour / Hot Water Tour (1988)
Off to See the Lizard Tour / Buffett Does Ballads Tour (1989)
Jimmy's Jump Up Tour (1990)
Outpost Tour (1991)
Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour (1992)
Chameleon Caravan Tour (1993)
Fruitcakes Tour (1994)
Domino College Tour (1995)
Banana Wind Tour (1996)
Havana Daydreamin' Tour (1997)
Don't Stop the Carnival Tour (1998)
Beach House on the Moon Tour (1999)
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays Tour (2000)
A Beach Odyssey Tour (2001)
Far Side of the World Tour (2002)
Tiki Time Tour (2003)
License to Chill Tour (2004)
A Salty Piece of Land Tour (2005)
Party at the End of the World Tour (2006)
Bama Breeze Tour (2007)
Year of Still Here Tour (2008)
Summerzcool Tour (2009)
Under the Big Top Tour (2010)
Welcome to Fin Land Tour (2011)
Lounging at the Lagoon Tour (2012–13)
Songs from St. Somewhere Tour (2013–14)
This One's for You Tour (2014–15)
Workin' n' Playin' Tour (2015–16)
I Don't Know Tour (2016–18)
Son of a Son of a Sailor Tour (2018–19)
Life on the Flip Side Tour (2021–present)
Discography
Down to Earth (1970)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974)
A1A (1974)
Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)
Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
Volcano (1979)
Coconut Telegraph (1981)
Somewhere over China (1982)
One Particular Harbour (1983)
Riddles in the Sand (1984)
Last Mango in Paris (1985)
Floridays (1986)
Hot Water (1988)
Off to See the Lizard (1989)
Fruitcakes (1994)
Barometer Soup (1995)
Banana Wind (1996)
Christmas Island (1996)
Don't Stop the Carnival (1998)
Beach House on the Moon (1999)
Far Side of the World (2002)
License to Chill (2004)
Take the Weather with You (2006)
Buffet Hotel (2009)
Songs from St. Somewhere (2013)
'Tis the SeaSon (2016)
Life on the Flip Side (2020)
Songs You Don't Know by Heart (2020)
Honors
Buffett's hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, named a bridge after him in his honor. (Buffett Bridge)
See also
List of bestselling music artists
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
References
External links
"Jimmy Buffett" entry at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
1946 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
ABC Records artists
American autobiographers
American aviators
American brewers
American children's writers
American country rock singers
American country singer-songwriters
American entertainment industry businesspeople
American folk rock musicians
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male pop singers
American male short story writers
American rock musicians
American rock singers
American short story writers
Auburn University alumni
Coral Reefer Band members
Dunhill Records artists
Easy listening musicians
Living people
Musicians from Mobile, Alabama
Novelists from Alabama
Novelists from Mississippi
American film score composers
American film producers
Pearl River Community College alumni
People from Fairhope, Alabama
People from Key West, Florida
People from Pascagoula, Mississippi
People from Sag Harbor, New York
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
University of Southern Mississippi alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from Alabama
| 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"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)"
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What did he do in his early career?
| 1 |
What did Phil Hartman do in his early career?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies".
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| true |
[
"Ben Fransham is a New Zealand actor known for his role as Petyr in the 2014 comedy What We Do in the Shadows.\n\nEarly life and education\nFransham graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington with a third-year scholarship diploma in 1991, and then won entry to The London Contemporary Dance School, but did not attend.\n\nCareer\n\nIn 1992, Fransham began freelance work, performing in Paul Jenden's Dance South, and touring the country with Footnote Dance Company.\n\nHe made his dramatic role debut as Rudy in Jacqueline Coats' stage production of Bent, which won a 1997 Chapmann Tripp Theatre Award for Most Original Production of the Year. Since then, he has performed in musical theatre, dramatic plays, vaudeville, puppetry, and sketch comedy shows, with increasing work in film and television.\n\nFransham performed in several episodes of Legend of the Seeker (2008–2010), in various featured roles of horrifying creatures. The actor has worked across multiple disciplines, including stunt performance, (e.g., with Terry Notary, in The Hobbit film trilogy, as a goblin, and with the stunt team as various orcs, goblins, humans, and elves).\n\nIn 2014, Fransham played the role of a vampire in the film What We Do in the Shadows and in 2015, he appeared in three episodes of Ash vs Evil Dead.\n\nSelected filmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nNew Zealand male film actors",
"Matt Bish (born 15 May 1975), also known as Matthew Bishanga, is a Ugandan filmmaker and the Creative Director at Bish Films. He directed the first Ugawood feature film, Battle of the Souls, in 2007.\n\nPersonal life and education\nThe first of four children born to Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Bishanga, Bish obtained his early education in Uganda. There, as a boy, he grew to love film, attending the cinema but also being exposed to many movies at home with his family on his father's home video system. He credits his parents with inspiring his film career. After his primary education, he attended Makerere University in Kampala, where he studied Architecture, before moving to the Netherlands in 1998 and studying Digital Filmmaking at the SAE Institute in Amsterdam.\n\nCareer\nIn 2005, Bish returned to Uganda to start an audiovisual production company \"Bish Films Ltd\" with his younger brother Roger Mugisha. At first limited to music videos, it soon branched out into films. Bish worked on his first feature film in 2006. Battle of the Souls is the first feature film in Uganda.\n\nBish Films produces TV commercials and documentaries, as well as films and music videos as they did when they first began. He believes Ugandan films that try to maintain quality should not be categorised as kina-Uganda (like ki-Nigeria) but rather Nile Films, Ugawood or something else.\n\n\"A critic is someone who can't do what you do the way you do it...\" - Matt Bish\n\nFilmography\n\n Short films\n\n Documentaries\n\nReferences\n\n1975 births\nLiving people\nUgandan film directors\nUgandan film producers\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nUgandan screenwriters"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\"."
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What did he do as a graphic artist?
| 2 |
What did Phil Hartman do as a graphic artist?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"Saul Mandel (January 21, 1926 – August 14, 2011) was an illustrator, artist, animator and graphic designer in the advertising field. He was most known for designing the Jolly Green Giant, the 1986 Puppy Love postage stamp, and a poster for The Incredible, Edible Egg marketing campaign. \n\nMandel's work in advertising had covered many types of products, such as: automobiles, airlines, milk, candy and alcohol. He had worked companies such as, NBC, AT&T, General Motors and Life and a variety of nonprofit groups, such as the Boy Scouts of America and the Advertising Council.\n\nWorks\n\nThe Jolly Green Giant \n\nOne of Mandel's famous characters, he described this as his favorite project: \"I had the most fun with it. Nobody inhibited me in what I did, what I tried to do and how I did it.\"\n\n\"Puppy Love\" Stamps 1986 \n\nCreated for United States Postal Service, the stamp had been described as 'too cute' for adult to use. Yet its popularity led to the creation of merchandise, which still be purchased at the post office.\n\nAwards of Excellence \nThe Society of Illustrators\nThe New York Art Directors Club\nThe Chicago Art Directors Club\nThe Minneapolis Art Directors Club\nThe New Jersey Art Directors Club\nThe Philadelphia Art Directors Club\nThe Connecticut Art Directors Club\nThe Institute of Outdoor Advertising.\nHumor '87, Exhibitions Award\nCreativity on Paper, National Exhibitions Award\nThe Communications Magazine, Exhibitions Award\n\nReferences\n\n1926 births\n2011 deaths\nAmerican illustrators\nAmerican stamp designers",
"Sudeep Acharya () (November 30, 1980) is a Nepali visual effects artist, motion graphic designer and film editor in Nepali film industry. He has worked more than 3 dozens films as visual effects artist. He is senior visual effects artist of Nepali Film Industry. He introduced visual effects scenes in Nepali movies. He has won many National Awards.\n\nEarly life\nAcharya was born in Kathmandu, Nepal. He studied at Saraswoti Multiple college. He has interest on designing, painting and photography.\nHe is also a good painter and worked for several projects for companies as a Visual effects artist and film editor.\n\nCareer\nSudeep Acharya worked as a graphic designer early on his career and than he started to work in Nepali movies industry and television ads. Since then he has been working as visual effects artist (Vfx) motion graphic designer and video editor. His works has been involved in many Nepali movies and television advertisements. He is also working on international projects as a freelancer.\n\nFilmography\n\nMarriage\n\nSudeep was married to Supriya Dahal.\n\nAwards\n\nVideos\nLG Cine Circle Awards 2017, Some of his works \"Vfx, Motion Graphic, Parallax Effects\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nNepalese animators\nVisual effects artists\nNepalese animated film directors\nNepalese film editors\nNepali film award winners\n1980 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Kathmandu"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What were the voices he did to amuse himself?
| 3 |
What were the voices Phil Hartman did to amuse himself?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"An amuse-bouche (; ) or amuse-gueule (, ; ) is a single, bite-sized hors d'œuvre. Amuse-bouches are different from appetizers in that they are not ordered from a menu by patrons but are served free and according to the chef's selection alone. These are served both to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a glimpse of the chef's style.\n\nThe term is French and literally means \"mouth amuser\". The plural form may be amuse-bouche or amuse-bouches.\nIn France, is traditionally used in conversation and literary writing, while amuse-bouche is not even listed in most dictionaries, being a euphemistic hypercorrection that appeared in the 1980s on restaurant menus and used almost only there. (In French, bouche refers to the human mouth, while gueule may mean the mouth or snout of an animal, though commonly used for mouth and derogatory only in certain expressions.)\n\nIn restaurants\nThe amuse-bouche emerged as an identifiable course during the nouvelle cuisine movement, which emphasized smaller, more intensely flavoured courses. It differs from other hors d'œuvres in that it is small, usually just one or two bites, and preselected by the chef and offered free of charge to all present at the table.\n\nThe function of the amuse-bouche could be played by rather simple offerings, such as a plate of olives or a crock of tapenade. It often becomes a showcase, however, of the artistry and showmanship of the chef, intensified by the competition among restaurants. According to Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a popular New York celebrity chef with restaurants around the world, \"The amuse-bouche is the best way for a great chef to express his or her big ideas in small bites\".\n\nAt some point, the amuse-bouche transformed from an unexpected bonus to a de rigueur offering at Michelin Guide-starred restaurants and those aspiring to that category (as recently as 1999, The New York Times provided a parenthetical explanation of the course). This in turn created a set of logistical challenges for restaurants: amuse-bouche must be prepared in sufficient quantities to serve all guests, usually just after the order is taken or between main courses. This often requires a separate cooking station devoted solely to producing the course quickly as well as a large and varied collection of specialized china for serving the amuse. Interesting plates, demitasse cups, and large Asian-style soup spoons are popular choices. In addition, the kitchen must try to accommodate guests who have an aversion or allergy to ingredients in the amuse.\n\nGallery\n\nSee also\n \"Amuse-Bouche\" (Hannibal)\n Apéritif and digestif\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAppetizers\nCourses (food)\nFrench cuisine\nCulinary terminology",
"Amuse is a digital music distribution service as well as independent record label founded 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden by entrepreneurs Diego Farias, Andreas Ahlenius, Christian Wilsson, Guy Parry and Jimmy Brodd. The company offers free digital music distribution and license deals to artists and independent labels, who retain 100% of their music ownership rights. Amuse is based in Stockholm, Sweden.\n\nHistory \n\nAmuse was founded in 2015 by Diego Farias, Andreas Ahlenius, Christian Wilsson, Guy Parry and Jimmy Brodd. The Amuse iOS and Android application was released in March 2017. In June 2017, American rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, record producer, voice actor and philanthropist will.i.am joined the company's list of co-founders. Later on in May 2018 Amuse raised $15,5M USD in series A funding round led by Venture capital firms Lakestar and Raine Ventures. In April 2019 the company launched Fast Forward - a tech service for music distribution users as well as a web application. In the end of 2018, Lil Nas X uploaded his song Old Town Road through Amuse. According to Diego Farias, CEO, he had previously uploaded several tracks which had not gained much attention. However, in the beginning of 2019 the company could see, through their algorithms, that Old Town Road was doing extremely well and so they offered the artist a deal. Lil Nas X later on chose to sign a deal with Columbia Records. The song Old Town Road, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, ended up becoming one of the most prized songs in the history of Billboard Hot 100, as it spent record-breaking 19 weeks at No.1.\n\nOperations \n\nAmuse have two main operations - digital music distribution and licensing of music. They provide musicians and other rights-holders with the opportunity to distribute, sell and stream their music through digital music stores.\n\nThe data-driven royalty advance service Fast Forward that was officially launched in April 2019, utilizes machine learning to calculate and offer users up to six months of their upcoming royalties through the Amuse smartphone application. The company's also operating in music licensing - from its distribution service, the company has access to the consumption data of how their users' music is being streamed and purchased, as well as the demographics of each artists' audience. Amuse leverages this data to identify emerging talent and offer selected artists licensing deals.\n\nFinancials \n\nAmuseio is based in Sweden and is required to release their financials. In 2019 they made $10.9m USD loss.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\nhttps://www.techcrunch.com/2018/05/22/amuse/\n\nhttps://www.feber.se/mobil/art/362391/ha_ditt_skivbolag_i_fickan/\nDelivery Company\n\nMusic production companies\nCompanies based in Stockholm"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,"
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What other shows was he on?
| 4 |
What other shows was Phil Hartman on in addition to The Smurfs and Challenge of the GoBots?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| true |
[
"Missus Goes A-Shopping was one of the earliest game shows to be broadcast on live television. The show first aired on CBS Radio from February 17, 1941 to December 21, 1951. The daytime TV version began November 19, 1947. It was \"CBS's first commercial daytime series.\"\n\nOn August 3, 1944 the early CBS Television network began airing a primetime TV version until January 22, 1946. The original host was John Reed King.\n\nHosting Changes\nKing hosted through the debut of the CBS Television Network's daytime television version (which began on November 19, 1947 and ended on November 10, 1948), after which he was briefly replaced by Bud Collyer with a new title of This Is the Missus on November 17.\n\nIn December, Collyer was replaced by Warren Hull until the series ended on January 12, 1949. Throughout the run, future What's My Line? producer Gil Fates served as a substitute host.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMissus Goes A-Shopping at IMDB\n\nAmerican game shows\nAmerican radio game shows\nCBS original programming\n1944 American television series debuts\n1949 American television series endings\n1940s American game shows\n1950s American game shows\nAmerican live television series",
"Bern Bennett (October 19, 1921 – May 29, 2014) was an American radio and television announcer.\n\nCareer\nFor nearly sixty years, beginning in 1944, Bennett was a staff announcer at CBS Radio and television. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was closely associated with Bud Collyer, as announcer on three Collyer-hosted game shows, Winner Take All, Beat the Clock, and To Tell the Truth, all produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman.\n\nOther radio programs for which Bennett was the announcer included This Is Broadway, School of the Air and Breakfast With Burrows. In 1960, he was host of Upbeat Saturday Night, a 30-minute program featuring live jazz music on CBS radio.\n\nOther television programs for which Bennett was the announcer included By Popular Demand, The Jonathan Winters Show, Password, The Phil Silvers Show, and Your Surprise Store.\n\nIn 1957, Bennett was the subject of a contest on Beat the Clock in which viewers were asked to \"Draw the Masked Announcer\" (meaning draw what they thought Bennett looked like). Bennett, who was never seen on-camera, made an appearance with the winner, Edward Darnell of Columbus, Indiana, who had been flown to New York to be a contestant on Clock. Collyer often kidded Bennett about the tendency for his voice to break when introducing \"America's number-one clock watcher... BUD COLLYER\", and his voice breaking on the word \"Collyer.\" Bennett was announcer on Clock until it moved from CBS to ABC in 1958. Bennett served as fill-in announcer on such shows as The Ed Sullivan Show (1948–1971) and What's My Line? (1950–1967). \n\nIn 1960, the network transferred Bennett to Los Angeles, where he was heard as announcer on such shows as The Danny Kaye Show, Your Surprise Package, the Tournament of Roses Parade, and, most notably, the soap operas The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. He also announced for the short-lived soap opera The Clear Horizon. In 1975, he subbed for a week on Match Game for its regular announcer Johnny Olson. He appeared on other networks: as the voice of a television announcer in an episode of The Flintstones (ABC) titled \"Fred Flintstone: Before and After\"; on The Facts of Life (NBC) in an on-camera appearance; and as a \"central subject\" on the 1991 NBC version of To Tell the Truth.\n\nBennett died on May 29, 2014 at the age of 92 in San Pedro, Los Angeles. His death was not announced in the media until October.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1921 births\n2014 deaths\nAmerican radio personalities\nAmerican television personalities\nGame show announcers\nPlace of birth missing"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role"
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
Did he write anything else?
| 5 |
Did Phil Hartman write anything else other than Pee-wee's Big Adventure?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| true |
[
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles",
"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)"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role",
"Did he write anything else?",
"Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,"
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
How long did he work on the show?
| 6 |
How long did Phil Hartman work on the Pee-wee Herman show?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind.
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"How Did This Get Made? is a comedy podcast on the Earwolf network hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas.\n\nGenerally, How Did This Get Made? is released every two weeks. During the show's off-week, a \".5\" episode is uploaded featuring Scheer announcing the next week's movie, as well as challenges for the fans. In addition to the shows and mini-shows, the How Did This Get Made? stream hosted the first three episodes of Bitch Sesh, the podcast of previous guests Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider, in December 2015. It has also hosted episodes of its own spin-off podcast, the How Did This Get Made? Origin Stories, in which Blake Harris interviews people involved with the films covered by the main show. In December 2017, an episode was recorded for the Pee Cast Blast event, and released exclusively on Stitcher Premium.\n\nEvery episode has featured Paul Scheer as the host of the podcast. The only episode to date in which Scheer hosted remotely was The Smurfs, in which he Skyped in. Raphael has taken extended breaks from the podcast for both filming commitments and maternity leave. Mantzoukas has also missed episodes due to work, but has also Skyped in for various episodes. On the occasions that neither Raphael nor Mantzoukas are available for live appearances, Scheer calls in previous fan-favorite guests for what is known as a How Did This Get Made? All-Stars episode.\n\nList of episodes\n\nMini episodes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n List of How Did This Get Made? episodes\n\nHow Did This Get Made\nHow Did This Get Made",
"John Mark Cocks (23 August 1966 – 6 February 2019), also known as 'Cocksy', was a New Zealand celebrity builder and television presenter. He was most notable for working on the My House My Castle series in the 1990s for New Zealand's TV2. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cocks was a prominent face on New Zealand television as Cocksy, New Zealand's favourite tradesman.\n\nTelevision career \n\nCocks started his career in television in the late 1990s. His prominent role on television is a builder and renovator, though he has worked on other projects that are not related to building in his career. One of the earliest TV shows that he appeared on was April's Angels. He appeared on this show alongside April Ieremia in 1998. After this Cocks then started appearing on the popular New Zealand home renovation TV show My House My Castle as the building consultant and builder. This show ran from 1999 until 2009.\n\nDuring the early 2000s, Cocks also appeared on several reality shows including City Celebrity Country Nobody and Celebrity Treasure Island to which he won on Season One of the show.\n\nCocks was also the voice and face of the Carters Building Supplies commercials in the early 2000s. Cocks appeared on television again in 2013 for the TV show How Did You Do That? alongside Amy Schaeffer and later in 2015 on My Dream Room: Kids Edition with television and radio host Mel Homer.\n\nTelevision work \n\n April's Angels (1998)\n My House My Castle (1999–2009) \n City Celebrity Country Nobody (2004)\n Celebrity Treasure Island (2005)\n Cocksys Day Off (2005) \n Jack of All Trades (2008)\n My Dream Room: Kids Edition (2015) \n How Did You Do That? (2013–2017)\n\nPersonal life \nIn June 2017 Cocks married Dana Coote. They had three daughters, Ella, Sophie, and Georgia, all three children from a previous marriage.\n\nIn 2016 Cocks was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He died from it on 6 February 2019.\n\nReferences \n\n1966 births\n2019 deaths\nNew Zealand television presenters\nNew Zealand builders\nDeaths from kidney cancer"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role",
"Did he write anything else?",
"Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,",
"How long did he work on the show?",
"Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind."
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What were the possibilities?
| 7 |
What were the possibilities brought to Phil Hartman by the Pee-wee Herman show?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"Possibilities is the fourth studio album by King Never. A concept album that is a mix of ambient, alternative, and progressive rock songs that chronicle a fictional character of \"Sonja\" thru a steam punk inspired world. Released on May 17, 2010.\n\nBackground \n\nAfter revisiting the pure ambient music explorations in 2007's Lullabies & Sleepless Nights (Ambient Guitar Noise: Volume 2), McCabe uses collaborators again for this high concept album which borrows inspiration from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This would be the first independent release for the band.\n\nFrom March 2009 into December 2010, McCabe hosted the King Never Podcast in which he chronicled the recording of what became the album Possibilities.\n\nIn April 2012 music videos for The City and Gravity, both directed by Gerald Benesch were released via the King Never official YouTube channel.\n\nReception\nDownthelinezine.com said: \"If you like music in that arena of alternative rock, you will also like this album.\"\n\nTrack listing \n\n Introduction – 2:34\n The City – 3:06\n Hotel Desolation – 2:57\n Possibilities – 1:22\n Gravity – 4:07\n Sorrow – 3:26\n Down Low – 3:54\n Believe – 3:19\n All Is Well That Ends Well – 3:05\n\nProduction notes \n\nReleased May 17, 2010. \nMatt McCabe: vocals, guitars, guitar loops/textures, bass, minimal keyboards and incidental cymbals\nKristy McCabe: background vocals\nJake Wood: drums\nRecorded, mixed and mastered by Matt McCabe at Finley Sound. Jake Wood's drums recorded by Jake Wood.Original cover art by Nemo.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Album info on KingNever.com\n\nPossibilities (King Never album)\nKing Never albums",
"Possibilities is a 2005 jazz album by Herbie Hancock.\n\nPossibilities may also refer to:\nPossibilities (King Never album), a 2010 album by American rock band King Never\nThe Possibilities, Athens, Georgia rock band\n\"Possibilities\", 1982 TV episode of Knots Landing (season 3, episode 12)\n\"Possibilities\", 2004 TV episode of Mutant X (season 3, episode 11)\n\"Possibilities\", a song by Weezer from their 2002 album Maladroit\nThe Possibilities (Preacher), an episode of the television series Preacher\n\nSee also\nPossibility (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role",
"Did he write anything else?",
"Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,",
"How long did he work on the show?",
"Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind.",
"What were the possibilities?",
"After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles."
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What other roles did he take on?
| 8 |
What other roles did Phil Hartman take on other than show writer and voice actor?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"James Francis Lanphier (August 31, 1920February 11, 1969) was an American actor who did a variety of work for Blake Edwards. He portrayed Saloud in the 1963 film The Pink Panther, and also appeared in films such as Darling Lili (1970) and the television series Peter Gunn (1958–61).\n\nBiography\nLanphier was born at Mitchel Field, New York, to Janet Grant Cobb and Thomas George Lanphier Sr. He had two brothers, Thomas Jr. and Charles.\n\nLanphier made his stage debut as a juvenile in an army post drama. He debuted on Broadway as a dancer in Mexican Hayride in 1944 and played Mr. Atkins in a production of Dark of the Moon the following year. He began his acting career on American television in 1949.\n\nIn 1957 Lanphier made his feature film debut in an uncredited role in The Deadly Mantis (1957). Several other minor roles followed including small roles in Blake Edwards' The Perfect Furlough (1958), Operation Petticoat (1959) and High Time (1960), then two appearances on Edwards' Peter Gunn television series. On the third season of the show Lanphier became a regular where he played Leslie, a former mobster and gourmet.\n\nHe played a landlord in Edwards' Experiment in Terror (1962) then acted as a dialogue coach on Edwards' Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and The Pink Panther (1963) where he played Saloud, one of his many roles where he played a Middle Eastern or Indian gentleman. He made minor appearances in more of Edwards' films, including What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) as an Italian villager, The Party (1968) as Harry, and his final role in Darling Lili (1970) as a Hungarian maître d'hôtel, released after his death.\n\nLanphier died on February 11, 1969.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1920 births\n1969 deaths\nAmerican male film actors\n20th-century American male actors\nPeople from Hempstead (town), New York",
"Flight to Denmark is an album led pianist Duke Jordan recorded in 1973 and released on the Danish SteepleChase label.\n\nReception\n\nIn his review for AllMusic, Michael G. Nastos said \"This is Duke Jordan at his most magnificent, with the ever-able Vinding and expert Thigpen playing their professional roles perfectly, producing perhaps the second best effort (next to Flight to Jordan from 13 years hence) from the famed bop pianist\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll compositions by Duke Jordan except as indicated\n \"No Problem\" – 6:41\n \"Here's That Rainy Day\" (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke) – 7:25\n \"Everything Happens To Me\" (Matt Dennis, Tom Adair) – 5:34\n \"Glad I Met Pat\" [Take 3] – 5:03 Bonus track on CD release\n \"Glad I Met Pat\" [Take 4] – 5:22\n \"How Deep Is the Ocean?\" (Irving Berlin) – 7:31\n \"On Green Dolphin Street\" (Bronisław Kaper, Ned Washington) – 8:15\n \"If I Did - Would You?\" [Take 1] – 3:41 Bonus track on CD release\n \"If I Did - Would You?\" [Take 2] – 3:50\n \"Flight to Denmark\" – 5:43\n \"No Problem\" – 7:09 Bonus track on CD release\n \"Jordu\" – 4:54 Bonus track on CD release\n\nPersonnel\nDuke Jordan – piano\nMads Vinding – bass \nEd Thigpen – drums\n\nReferences\n\n1974 albums\nDuke Jordan albums\nSteepleChase Records albums"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role",
"Did he write anything else?",
"Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,",
"How long did he work on the show?",
"Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind.",
"What were the possibilities?",
"After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.",
"What other roles did he take on?",
"Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements."
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 9 |
Are there any other interesting aspects about Phil Hartman aside from doing voice-overs for advertisements?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast.
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| 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"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role",
"Did he write anything else?",
"Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,",
"How long did he work on the show?",
"Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind.",
"What were the possibilities?",
"After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.",
"What other roles did he take on?",
"Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast."
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What happened after that?
| 10 |
What happened after Phil Hartman climbed on stage to join the cast?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings;
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| 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 Happened to Jones may refer to:\n What Happened to Jones (1897 play), a play by George Broadhurst\n What Happened to Jones (1915 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1920 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1926 film), a silent film comedy"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Early career (1975-1985)",
"What did he do in his early career?",
"Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with \"flights of voice fantasies\".",
"What did he do as a graphic artist?",
"I don't know.",
"What were the voices he did to amuse himself?",
"Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots,",
"What other shows was he on?",
"Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role",
"Did he write anything else?",
"Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show,",
"How long did he work on the show?",
"Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind.",
"What were the possibilities?",
"After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.",
"What other roles did he take on?",
"Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast.",
"What happened after that?",
"After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings;"
] |
C_8f3ec4d0681842848fcf988fd7a2544b_1
|
What was the logo they redesigned?
| 11 |
What was the logo Phil Hartman redesigned for the group?
|
Phil Hartman
|
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Citing the need for a more social outlet for his talents, Hartman, aged 27, began in 1975 to attend evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on The Pee-wee Herman Show and returned in the role for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter in the film. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. CANNOTANSWER
|
paying his way by re-designing the group's logo and merchandise,
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"The Pepsi Globe is the logo for Pepsi, named for the red, white, and blue design in a sphere-like shape. It is one of the most recognizable logos in the world.\n\nHistory\nThe modern Pepsi logo has its origins in the 1940s, during World War II. Pepsi unveiled a new bottle cap that featured the Pepsi script surrounded by red and blue colors on a white background. Since Pepsi was recognizable with its script logo in the same manner as its main rival, Coca-Cola, the cap logo was meant as a show of U.S. patriotism.\n\nThe cap logo became Pepsi's primary logo around 1945. The logo was redesigned in 1962 as a bottle cap, replacing the script in favor of a modern \"Pepsi\" type treatment\n\nThe logo was updated again in 1973, when the wordmark was made smaller to fit in the white section of the logo. The bottle cap motif was dropped and the logo was flanked with a red bar on the left and a light-blue bar on the right. A vertical variation of this would also have the red bar on the bottom and the light-blue bar on the top or omitted. The logo was modified in a new font in 1987.\n\nIn 1991, no typeface of any kind would be in the white section of the logo on a regular Pepsi product. Instead, the red bar would be lengthened slightly, the light-blue bar removed, and the Pepsi wordmark was moved to the top.\n\nIn 1998, the red bar was removed as Pepsi adopted all-blue packaging, and visually detailed the Pepsi Globe to appear three-dimensional. This was the first official use of the logo as the “Pepsi Globe.” The design was refined in early 2003 when the typeface was updated and the Pepsi Globe became more detailed. This version remained mostly the same in 2006 when Pepsi redesigned the packaging once more to show different backgrounds on each can, though the color remained blue.\n\nIn 2008, the Arnell Group led by Peter Arnell was hired to redesign and execute a new logo worldwide. The resulting work has become known as the “\"Pepsi Globe\". Arnell's proposal for the new logo was leaked in 2009, and was widely mocked in the media as being \"nonsensical\" and \"brand-equity pop-psychobabble\".\n\n\"New\" Pepsi Globe\n\nIn October 2008, Pepsi announced it would be redesigning its logo and re-branding many of its products by mid-2009. The New York-based brand consultancy agency Arnell Group was hired on a $1 million contract to perform the brand update, leading to a 27-page design proposal titled BREATHTAKING Design Strategy. The document was subsequently leaked on Reddit by a user claiming to be an industry freelancer and garnered mixed reception. Described in some press reports as \"bizarre\" and \"nonsensical\", rumors were reported that the document was a hoax perpetrated by the Arnell Group itself as a component of a viral marketing campaign. In an interview with AdAge, agency namesake Peter Arnell commented on the project:\n\n\"When I did the Pepsi logo, I told Pepsi that I wanted to go to Asia, to China and Japan, for a month and tuck myself away and just design it and study it and create it … There was a lot of research, a lot of consumer data points … and dialogue that I had with the folks at Pepsi, consumers and retailers. We knew what we were doing.\"\n\nPepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Max now use all lower-case fonts for name brands, Mountain Dew has been renamed \"Mtn Dew,\" and Diet Pepsi Max has been re-branded as Pepsi Max, because the original 1993 version is no longer available in the United States. The new imagery has started to be used. The new lower-case font used on Pepsi's products are reminiscent of the font used in Diet Pepsi's logo from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.\n\nThe white area of the logo became a series of \"smiles,\" with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product until mid 2010. Regular Pepsi had a medium-sized \"smile\", while Diet Pepsi had a small \"grin\". Pepsi Max's variant was the most different, using a large \"laugh\" and also used black in the bottom third of the globe as opposed to the more standard royal blue. In July 2010, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max, and all other Pepsi variants (except Pepsi ONE) began using the regular \"smile\" logo as it was redesigned to match the global branding.\n\nThe new Pepsi design was unveiled in Canada in 2009. It was then released in other countries outside the US in 2010 such as France and the UK, meaning the 2003 design was phased out completely. In the UK, the current \"smile\" logo features the globe in the center, and the \"Pepsi\" text below it, as opposed to the tilted text in the US.\n\nAs of 2014, the only Pepsi product not using the redesigned Pepsi Globe is Pepsi Throwback. Throwback deliberately uses retro 1973 logo on the packaging due to the drink using an older formula of Pepsi containing sugarcane instead of high-fructose corn syrup that is more commonly found in soft drinks today in the US. The product was renamed Pepsi-Cola Made With Real Sugar in 2014, and uses the 1950s-era script logo in addition to the modern globe logo. Pepsi ONE previously used the 2005 logo until late 2012, when it adopted the current smile logo to keep in line with Pepsi's current branding.\n\nCost\nThe true cost of the new logo is difficult to quantify including the costs of replacing the old logo on trucks, vending machines, stadium signs, billboards, point-of-sale materials and other places that displayed the old Pepsi logo. One expert estimated that this cost could easily reach several hundred million dollars. The estimated time to remake this icon was about 5 months. The CEO of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi, called for a \"quantum leap\" forward in reconstructing the soft drink business and for Pepsi to be recognized as a cultural leader. Pepsi needed to find ways to cut costs in the next few years. It laid off many workers, primarily in the Frito-Lay division, and spent significantly less on television advertising in 2010 and 2011. In those years Coca-Cola spent roughly 8% of sales on television advertising while Pepsi spent just 3%. In 2012 Pepsi spent an estimated $400 million to $500 million on advertising spending.\n\nDiet Pepsi\nDiet Pepsi was using 1960s-style script with light-blue waves below the script on a white background from the 1970s to 1980s.\n\nWhen the product was reformulated with NutraSweet in 1984, Diet Pepsi received a jagged, multi-layered version of the Pepsi Globe. With the \"Diet Pepsi\" typeface positioned above the globe, it marked the first time no text was in the white section of the Pepsi Globe on any Pepsi product. The text being absent from the Pepsi Globe would carry over with regular Pepsi in 1991.\n\nDiet Pepsi has used the Pepsi Globe since, as it became more standardized in 1991, along with Pepsi's other products.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nPepsiCo\nTrademarks\nDrink company logos\nSymbols introduced in the 1940s\nSoft drink logos\nCommercial logos",
"The CP-200 was a Brazilian home computer produced in 1982.\n\nIt was compatible in software and hardware with the British Sinclair ZX81, although it was a less literal copy than the competing machines (TK82C and TK83), produced by Microdigital. There were two models of CP200, very similar cabinets, but model 1 had the Prológica logo in high relief and a slightly smaller cabinet, while model 2 had a logo plate in the same position.\n\nPrológica later redesigned the cabinet, added a video monitor output, external power supply, and relaunched the product as \"CP200S\".\n\nBibliography \nHURLEY, Linda. Programas para jovens programadores: TK82-83-85 CP200. São Paulo: McGraw-Hill, 1984.\n\nReferences \n\nComputer-related introductions in 1982"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification"
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
how did he amplify the audio frequency?
| 1 |
how did Lee de Forest amplify the audio frequency?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification.
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| true |
[
"An audio filter is a frequency dependent circuit, working in the audio frequency range, 0 Hz to 20 kHz. Audio filters can amplify (boost), pass or attenuate (cut) some frequency ranges. Many types of filters exist for different audio applications including hi-fi stereo systems, musical synthesizers, effects units, sound reinforcement systems, instrument amplifiers and virtual reality systems.\n\nTypes\n\nLow-pass\nLow-pass filters pass through frequencies below their cutoff frequencies, and progressively attenuates frequencies above the cutoff frequency. Low-pass filters are used in audio crossovers to remove high-frequency content from signals being sent to a low-frequency subwoofer system.\n\nHigh-pass\nA high-pass filter does the opposite, passing high frequencies above the cutoff frequency, and progressively attenuating frequencies below the cutoff frequency. A high-pass filter can be used in an audio crossover to remove low-frequency content from a signal being sent to a tweeter.\n\nBandpass\nA bandpass filter passes frequencies between its two cutoff frequencies, while attenuating those outside the range. A band-reject filter attenuates frequencies between its two cutoff frequencies, while passing those outside the 'reject' range.\n\nAll-pass\nAn all-pass filter passes all frequencies, but affects the phase of any given sinusoidal component according to its frequency.\n\nApplications\nIn some applications, such as in the design of graphic equalizers or CD players, the filters are designed according to a set of objective criteria such as pass band, pass band attenuation, stop band, and stop band attenuation, where the pass bands are the frequency ranges for which audio is attenuated less than a specified maximum, and the stop bands are the frequency ranges for which the audio must be attenuated by a specified minimum. In more complex cases, an audio filter can provide a feedback loop, which introduces resonance (ringing) alongside attenuation. Audio filters can also be designed to provide gain (boost) as well as attenuation.\nIn other applications, such as with synthesizers or sound effects, the aesthetic of the filter must be evaluated subjectively.\n\nAudio filters can be implemented in analog circuitry as analog filters or in DSP code or computer software as digital filters. Generically, the term 'audio filter' can be applied to mean anything which changes the timbre, or harmonic content of an audio signal.\n\nSelf-oscillation\n\nSelf-oscillation occurs when the resonance or Q factor of the cutoff frequency of the filter is set high enough that the internal feedback causes the filter circuitry to become a sine tone sine wave oscillator.\n\nSee also\nElectrical resonance\nElectronic filter\nEqualization (audio)\nFeedback\nLinear filter\nOscillation\nSelf-resonant frequency\n\nTone, EQ and filter\nSynthesizer electronics\nElectronic circuits",
"A reflex radio receiver, occasionally called a reflectional receiver, is a radio receiver design in which the same amplifier is used to amplify the high-frequency radio signal (RF) and low-frequency audio (sound) signal (AF). It was first invented in 1914 by German scientists Wilhelm Schloemilch and Otto von Bronk, and rediscovered and extended to multiple tubes in 1917 by Marius Latour<ref name=\"Latour\">US Patent no. 1405523, Marius Latour Audion or lamp relay or amplifying apparatus, filed December 28, 1917; granted February 7, 1922</ref> and William H. Priess. The radio signal from the antenna and tuned circuit passes through an amplifier, is demodulated in a detector which extracts the audio signal from the radio carrier, and the resulting audio signal passes again through the same amplifier for audio amplification before being applied to the earphone or loudspeaker. The reason for using the amplifier for \"double duty\" was to reduce the number of active devices, vacuum tubes or transistors, required in the circuit, to reduce the cost. The economical reflex circuit was used in inexpensive vacuum tube radios in the 1920s, and was revived again in simple portable tube radios in the 1930s.\n\nHow it works\n\nThe block diagram shows the general form of a simple reflex receiver. The receiver functions as a tuned radio frequency (TRF) receiver. The radio frequency (RF) signal from the tuned circuit (bandpass filter) is amplified, then passes through the high pass filter to the demodulator, which extracts the audio frequency (AF) (modulation) signal from the carrier wave. The audio signal is added back into the input of the amplifier, and is amplified again. At the output of the amplifier the audio is separated from the RF signal by the low pass filter and is applied to the earphone. The amplifier could be a single stage or multiple stages. It can be seen that since each active device (tube or transistor) is used to amplify the signal twice, the reflex circuit is equivalent to an ordinary receiver with double the number of active devices. \n\nThe reflex receiver should not be confused with a regenerative receiver, in which the same signal is fed back from the output of the amplifier to its input. In the reflex circuit it is only the audio extracted by the demodulator which is added to the amplifier input, so there are two separate signals at different frequencies passing through the amplifier at the same time.\n\nThe reason the two signals, the RF and AF currents, can pass simultaneously through the amplifier without interfering is due to the superposition principle because the amplifier is linear. Since the two signals have different frequencies, they can be separated at the output with frequency selective filters. Therefore the proper functioning of the circuit depends on the amplifier operating in the linear region of its transfer curve. If the amplifier is significantly nonlinear, intermodulation distortion will occur and the audio signal will modulate the RF signal, resulting in audio feedback which can cause a shrieking in the earphone. The presence of the audio return circuit from the amplifier output to input made the reflex circuit vulnerable to such parasitic oscillation problems. \n\n Applications \nThe most common application of the reflex circuit in the 1920s was in inexpensive single tube receivers, because many consumers could not afford more than one vacuum tube, and the reflex circuit got the most out of a single tube, it was equivalent to a two-tube set. During this period the demodulator was usually a carborundum point contact diode, but sometimes a vacuum tube grid-leak detector. However multitube receivers like the TRF and superheterodyne were also made with some of their amplifier stages \"reflexed\".\n\nThe reflex principle was used in compact superheterodyne radio receivers from the 1930s to the early 1950s; the intermediate frequency amplifier stage was also the first audio frequency stage using a reflex arrangement. That arrangement provided similar performance, in a four-tube radio, as one with five tubes. At least one type of tube was specially designed for this kind of receiver design.\n\nExample\n\nThe diagram (right) shows one of the most common single tube reflex circuits from the early 1920s. It functioned as a TRF receiver with one stage of RF and one stage of audio amplification. The radio frequency (RF) signal from the antenna passes through the bandpass filter C1, L1, L2, C2 and is applied to the grid of the directly heated triode, V1. The capacitor C6 bypasses the RF signal around the audio transformer winding T2 which would block it. The amplified signal from the plate of the tube is applied to the RF transformer L3, L4 while C3 bypasses the RF signal around the headphone coils. The tuned secondary L4, C5 which is tuned to the input frequency, serves as a second bandpass filter as well as blocking the audio signal in the plate circuit from getting to the detector. Its output is rectified by semiconductor diode D, which was a carborundum point contact type. \n\nThe resulting audio signal extracted by the diode from the RF signal is coupled back into the grid circuit by audio transformer T1, T2 whose iron core serves as a choke to help prevent RF from getting back into the grid circuit and causing feedback. The capacitor C4 provides more protection against feedback, blocking the pulses of RF from the diode, but is usually not needed since the transformer's winding T1 normally has enough parasitic capacitance. The audio signal is applied to the grid of the tube and amplified. The amplified audio signal from the plate passes easily through the low inductance RF primary winding L3 and is applied to the earphones T. The rheostat 'R1''' controlled the filament current, and in these early sets was used as a volume control.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSchematic of FADA model 160 neutrodyne radio, a reflectional receiver from the 1920s.\nSchematic of General Electric model F40 radio, a Super-Heterodyne receiver first manufactured in 1937.\n\nReceiver (radio)\nRadio electronics"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"how did he amplify the audio frequency?",
"by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification."
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
did he have any problems?
| 2 |
did Lee de Forest have any problems?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines.
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| true |
[
"Hilbert's twenty-fourth problem is a mathematical problem that was not published as part of the list of 23 problems known as Hilbert's problems but was included in David Hilbert's original notes. The problem asks for a criterion of simplicity in mathematical proofs and the development of a proof theory with the power to prove that a given proof is the simplest possible.\n\nThe 24th problem was rediscovered by German historian Rüdiger Thiele in 2000, noting that Hilbert did not include the 24th problem in the lecture presenting Hilbert's problems or any published texts. Hilbert's friends and fellow mathematicians Adolf Hurwitz and Hermann Minkowski were closely involved in the project but did not have any knowledge of this problem.\n\nThis is the full text from Hilbert's notes given in Rüdiger Thiele's paper. The section was translated by Rüdiger Thiele.\n\nIn 2002, Thiele and Larry Wos published an article on Hilbert's twenty-four problem with a discussion about its relation to various issues in automated reasoning, logic, and mathematics.\n\nReferences\n\n24",
"In computational complexity theory, the complexity class #P (pronounced \"sharp P\" or, sometimes \"number P\" or \"hash P\") is the set of the counting problems associated with the decision problems in the set NP. More formally, #P is the class of function problems of the form \"compute f(x)\", where f is the number of accepting paths of a nondeterministic Turing machine running in polynomial time. Unlike most well-known complexity classes, it is not a class of decision problems but a class of function problems. The most difficult, representative problems of this class are #P-complete.\n\nRelation to decision problems\nAn NP decision problem is often of the form \"Are there any solutions that satisfy certain constraints?\" For example:\n Are there any subsets of a list of integers that add up to zero? (subset sum problem)\n Are there any Hamiltonian cycles in a given graph with cost less than 100? (traveling salesman problem)\n Are there any variable assignments that satisfy a given CNF (conjunctive normal form) formula? (Boolean satisfiability problem or SAT)\n Does a univariate real polynomial have any positive roots? (Root finding)\n\nThe corresponding #P function problems ask \"how many\" rather than \"are there any\". For example:\n How many subsets of a list of integers add up to zero?\n How many Hamiltonian cycles in a given graph have cost less than 100?\n How many variable assignments satisfy a given CNF formula?\n How many roots of a univariate real polynomial are positive?\n\nRelated complexity classes\nClearly, a #P problem must be at least as hard as the corresponding NP problem. If it's easy to count answers, then it must be easy to tell whether there are any answers—just count them and see whether the count is greater than zero. Some of these problems, such as root finding, are easy enough to be in FP, while others are #P-complete.\n\nOne consequence of Toda's theorem is that a polynomial-time machine with a #P oracle (P#P) can solve all problems in PH, the entire polynomial hierarchy. In fact, the polynomial-time machine only needs to make one #P query to solve any problem in PH. This is an indication of the extreme difficulty of solving #P-complete problems exactly.\n\nSurprisingly, some #P problems that are believed to be difficult correspond to easy (for example linear-time) P problems. For more information on this, see #P-complete.\n\nThe closest decision problem class to #P is PP, which asks whether a majority (more than half) of the computation paths accept. This finds the most significant bit in the #P problem answer. The decision problem class ⊕P (pronounced \"Parity-P\") instead asks for the least significant bit of the #P answer.\n\nFormal definitions\n#P is formally defined as follows:\n #P is the set of all functions such that there is a polynomial time nondeterministic Turing machine such that for all , equals the number of accepting branches in 's computation graph on . \n\n#P can also be equivalently defined in terms of a verifer. A decision problem is in NP if there exists a polynomial-time checkable certificate to a given problem instance—that is, NP asks whether there exists a proof of membership for the input that can be checked for correctness in polynomial time. The class #P asks how many certificates there exist for a problem instance that can be checked for correctness in polynomial time. In this context, #P is defined as follows:\n #P is the set of functions such that there exists a polynomial and a polynomial-time deterministic Turing machine , called the verifier, such that for every , . (In other words, equals the size of the set containing all of the polynomial-size certificates).\n\nHistory\nThe complexity class #P was first defined by Leslie Valiant in a 1979 article on the computation of the permanent of a square matrix, in which he proved that permanent is #P-complete.\n\nLarry Stockmeyer has proved that for every #P problem there exists a randomized algorithm using an oracle for SAT, which given an instance of and returns with high probability a number such that . The runtime of the algorithm is polynomial in and . The algorithm is based on the leftover hash lemma.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nComplexity classes"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"how did he amplify the audio frequency?",
"by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification.",
"did he have any problems?",
"It was found that de Forest's \"gassy\" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines."
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
how did he fix it?
| 3 |
how did Lee de Forest fix an issue with the voltages used in telephone lines ?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages.
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| false |
[
"How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. The premise revolves around documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr following the effects of crime drug lab chemists Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan and their tampering with evidence and its aftereffects.\n\nDookhan was accused of forging reports and tampering with samples to produce desired results. Farak was accused of tampering with the evidence she was tasked with analyzing by using it to get high herself. The actions of both women, who acted independently, resulted in tens of thousands of drug counts being dismissed, the largest single mass dismissal of criminal cases in U.S. history. How to Fix a Drug Scandal depicts the role of former Attorney General of Massachusetts Martha Coakley, who was accused of political cover up.\n\nRelease \nHow to Fix a Drug Scandal was released on April 1, 2020, on Netflix.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n2020 American television series debuts\n2020 American television series endings\n2020s American documentary television series\nEnglish-language television shows\nNetflix original documentary television series\nDocumentary television series about crime in the United States\nTelevision shows set in Massachusetts",
"Helen H. Fix (September 21, 1922 – October 13, 2019) was an American politician in the state of Ohio. She was a Republican member of the Ohio General Assembly. A graduate of Richmond University and a former newspaper reporter, she served on Amberley Village Council for four terms. Fix initially decided to run for the Ohio House of Representatives in 1972, following redistricting. Facing incumbent John Bechtold in the Republican primary, Fix won by only one vote. She went on to win reelection in 1974, and 1976.\n\nIn 1978, it was speculated that Fix would be appointed to replace Senator Michael Maloney in the Ohio Senate, however, the post ultimately went to Richard Finan. She was again reelected to the House in 1978 and 1980, serving as minority whip in the 114th Ohio General Assembly.\n\nFix did not run for reelection to the House in 1982, and was placed on the Ohio Employment Relations Board soon after. Fix died on October 13, 2019 in Apple Valley, California at the age of 97.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The Ohio Ladies Gallery: Representative Helen Fix (R-Cincinnati) \n\n1922 births\nMembers of the Ohio House of Representatives\nWomen state legislators in Ohio\n2019 deaths\nOhio Republicans\n21st-century American women"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"how did he amplify the audio frequency?",
"by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification.",
"did he have any problems?",
"It was found that de Forest's \"gassy\" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines.",
"how did he fix it?",
"by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages."
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 4 |
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article besides theAudio frequency amplification ?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| true |
[
"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"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"how did he amplify the audio frequency?",
"by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification.",
"did he have any problems?",
"It was found that de Forest's \"gassy\" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines.",
"how did he fix it?",
"by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents"
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
how much did they purchase it for?
| 5 |
how much did AT&T purchase the wire rights to seven Audion patents for?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
for $50,000.
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| true |
[
"A Lease-Purchase Contract, also known as a Lease Purchase Agreement, is the heart of rent-to-own properties. It combines elements of a traditional rental agreement with an exclusive right of first refusal option for later purchase on the home. It is a shortened name for Lease with Option to Purchase Contract.\n\nThe typical contents of a Lease-Purchase Contract\n\nMonthly Payment - How much the tenant will be paying monthly.\nRent Credit - How much of the tenant's monthly payment will go to the eventual down-payment of the property at the end of the lease. It is strongly suggested that the tenant establish an escrow account to ensure the security of his or her rent credit.\nDuration - The timeframe of the Lease-Purchase Agreement. Usually 2–3 years or more. \nProperty Value - The locked-in sale price of the property. The Tenant-Buyer and Seller usually agree to keep the property value the same despite house market changes.\nTerms and Rules - This section talks about other details of the Lease such as property taxes, home repairs, homeowner's association fee, etc.\n\nTransaction Structure\n\nIn a standard Lease-Purchase Contract, the two parties agree to a lease period during which rent is paid, and the terms of the sale at the end of the lease period, including sale price. Often, the contract is structured in two parts, one representing the lease term and the other a contract of sale. The lease agreement expounds upon what responsibilities the tenant/buyer and landlord/seller undertake during the course of the lease. This contract will also include the option fee and how much of the monthly payment will be credited to the down-payment for the purchase of the home at the end of the lease.\n\nAt the end of the lease-term, the tenant/buyer has the option to purchase the house. The lump sum accrued from the initial deposit and the rent credit are only released to the buyer as down-payment on the house should the tenant/buyer decide to proceed with the purchase. The tenant/buyer is responsible for securing the necessary mortgage loan to finalize the purchase of the home.\n\nAs is usually stated in the lease purchase contract, the option fee and accrued rent credit are both non-refundable should the tenant/buyer decide to walk at the end of the lease. The tenant/buyer is released from responsibility for the sale, and the landlord/seller is responsible for finding new tenants.\n\nShould the tenant/buyer be unable to purchase the house due to a lack of financing, the tenant and landlord can agree to extend the option period, convert the lease purchase contract into a traditional rental agreement, or end the contract with the tenant moving out and the landlord seeking other renters or buyers.\n\nBenefits\n\nLease-purchase contract agreements are open source in nature and flexible to the needs of the tenant/buyer and landlord/seller. Lease-purchase contracts are popular with tenant/buyers who have poor credit scores, lower savings for down payments, or people who are moving from one city to another but are pending a sale on their previous home. They are great for sellers who are having difficulty securing tenants for their properties, which can be common when a house is for sale.\n\nDifficulties\n\nIn the United States, when credits are applied to a purchase price the agreement becomes a financing contract and these contracts have been identified as predatory lending arrangements under the Dodd-Frank Act. Under this federal law any financing arrangement requires the purchaser of an owner occupied dwelling (one to four living units) is to qualify for any financing contract with a registered Mortgage Loan Originator. There are exemptions under this federal law for homeowners financing their primary residence, those in the business of real estate such as landlords are considered dealers. In all states, rent to own arrangements are no longer compliant with federal financing requirements.\n\nCommercial loan arrangements are exempt from the Dodd-Frank Act, as a landlord might rent to own a property for the purpose of sub-letting to a tenant. This arrangement is not a popular arrangement but may be accomplished legally.\n\nLease-purchase contracts are not for everyone. As successful completion of the agreement and sale transaction requires financing through a traditional route, people whose circumstances will not allow them to receive a mortgage should abstain from rent-to-own real estate agreements.\n\nInternational Use\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nAmid concerns about how long saving for a deposit takes young professionals, a £400 million program was recently announced subsidizing rent at 20% for first-time homeowners. Subsidized rent prices lock in a period of time when the tenant-buyer saves, and the program requires sellers keep rent prices low to accommodate the process. At the end of the saving period, professionals have the option to purchase their flat. It now takes the average first-time buyer 22 years to save for a deposit without parental assistance.\n\nNew Zealand\n\nAuckland’s special housing area is subsidized by the Housing Foundation, providing homes for young families. Under their program, tenants pay rent on their homes for the first five years, then transition into paying mortgage payments. The Waimahia Inlet flagship development will see 282 new homes built over the next three years.\n\nNigeria\n\nThe Lagos State Home-Ownership Mortgage Scheme (LagosHOMS) is a rent-to-own housing program that targets people who currently cannot afford a mortgage, but given will be able to. Tenants are expected to pay rent for a period of time, after which they are invited to transition into mortgage payments. The program is designed with young professionals in mind, including teachers and junior public servants. The program has produced well over 200 new homeowners in the city.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \"Lease Purchase Agreement Rules in Ohio\".\n \"Lease Purchase Agreement Rules in California\".\n \"Lease Purchase Agreement Rules in Arizona\".\n\nProperty law\nContract law\nLegal documents\nReal estate terminology",
"This is a worked-through example showing the use of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in a practical decision situation.\n\nSee Analytic hierarchy process#Practical examples for context for this example.\n\nOverview\n \nAHP stands for analytic hierarchy process and belongs to the multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM). In AHP, values like price, weight, or area, or even subjective opinions such as feelings, preferences, or satisfaction, can be translated into measurable numeric relations. The core of AHP is the comparison of pairs instead of sorting (ranking), voting (e.g. assigning points) or the free assignment of priorities.\nTeachers and users of the AHP know that the best way to understand it is to work through an example. The example below shows how a broad range of considerations can be managed through the use of the analytic hierarchy process.\nThe decision at hand requires a reasonably complex hierarchy to describe. It involves factors from the tangible and precisely measurable (purchase price, passenger capacity, cargo capacity), through the tangible but difficult to measure (maintenance costs, fuel costs, resale value) to the intangible and totally subjective (style).\n(https://bpmsg.com/ahp-introduction)\n\nIn the end, there is a clear decision whose development can be seen, traced, and understood by all concerned.\n\nA practical example: choosing an automobile\nIn an AHP hierarchy for a family buying a vehicle, the goal might be to choose the best car for the Jones family. The family might decide to consider cost, safety, style, and capacity as the criteria for making their decision. They might subdivide the cost criterion into purchase price, fuel costs, maintenance costs, and resale value. They might separate Capacity into cargo capacity and passenger capacity. The family, which for personal reasons always buys Hondas, might decide to consider as alternatives the Accord Sedan, Accord Hybrid Sedan, Pilot SUV, CR-V SUV, Element SUV, and Odyssey Minivan.\n\nConstructing the hierarchy\nThe Jones' hierarchy could be diagrammed as shown below:\n \n\nAs they build their hierarchy, the buyer should investigate the values or measurements of the different elements that make it up. If there are published safety ratings, for example, or manufacturer's specs for cargo capacity, they should be gathered as part of the process. This information will be needed later, when the criteria and alternatives are evaluated.\n\nNote that the measurements for some criteria, such as purchase price, can be stated with absolute certainty. Others, such as resale value, must be estimated, so must be stated with somewhat less confidence. Still others, such as style, are really in the eye of the beholder and are hard to state quantitatively at all. The AHP can accommodate all these types of criteria, even when they are present in a single problem.\n\nAlso note that the structure of the vehicle-buying hierarchy might be different for other families (ones who don't limit themselves to Hondas, or who care nothing about style, or who drive less than a year, etc.). It would definitely be different for a 25-year-old playboy who doesn't care how much his cars cost, knows he will never wreck one, and is intensely interested in speed, handling, and the numerous aspects of style.\n\nPairwise comparing the criteria with respect to the goal\nTo incorporate their judgments about the various elements in the hierarchy, decision makers compare the elements two by two. How they are compared will be shown later on. Right now, let's see which items are compared. Our example will begin with the four criteria in the second row of the hierarchy, though we could begin elsewhere if we wanted to. The criteria will be compared as to how important they are to the decision makers, with respect to the goal.\n\nEach pair of items in this row will be compared; there are a total of six pairs (cost/safety, cost/style, cost/capacity, safety/style, safety/capacity, and style/capacity). You can use the diagram below to see these pairs more clearly.\n\nIn the next row, there is a group of four subcriteria under the cost criterion, and a group of two subcriteria under the capacity criterion.\n\nIn the Cost subgroup, each pair of subcriteria will be compared regarding their importance with respect to the Cost criterion. (As always, their importance is judged by the decision makers.) Once again, there are six pairs to compare (Purchase Price/Fuel Costs, Purchase Price/Maintenance Costs, Purchase Price/Resale Value, Fuel Costs/Maintenance Costs, Fuel Costs/Resale Value, and Maintenance Costs/Resale Value).\n\nIn the Capacity subgroup, there is only one pair of subcriteria. They are compared as to how important they are with respect to the Capacity criterion.\n\nThings change a bit when we get to the alternatives row. Here, the cars in each group of alternatives are compared pair-by-pair with respect to the covering criterion of the group, which is the node directly above them in the hierarchy. What we are doing here is evaluating the models under consideration with respect to Purchase Price, then with respect to fuel costs, then maintenance costs, resale value, safety, style, cargo capacity, and passenger capacity. Because there are six cars in the group of alternatives, there will be fifteen comparisons for each of the eight covering criteria.\n\nWhen the pairwise comparisons are as numerous as those in our example, specialized AHP software can help in making them quickly and efficiently. We will assume that the Jones family has access to such software, and that it allows the opinions of various family members to be combined into an overall opinion for the group.\n\nThe family's first pairwise comparison is cost vs. safety. They need to decide which of these is more important in choosing the best car for them all. This can be a difficult decision. On the one hand, \"You can't put a price on safety. Nothing is more important than the life of a family member.\" But on the other hand, the family has a limited amount of money to spend, no member has ever had a major accident, and Hondas are known as very safe cars. In spite of the difficulty in comparing money to potential injury or death, the Jones family needs to determine its judgment about cost vs. safety in the car they are about to buy. They have to say which criterion is more important to them in reaching their goal, and how much more important it is (to them) than the other one. In making this judgment, they should remember that since the AHP is a flexible process, they can change their judgment later on.\n\nYou can imagine that there might be heated family discussion about cost vs. safety. It is the nature of the AHP to promote focused discussions about difficult aspects of the decisions to which it is applied. Such discussions encourage the communication of differences, which in turn encourages cooperation, compromise, and agreement among the members of the group.\n\nLet's say that the family decides that in this case, cost is moderately more important to them than safety. The software requires them to express this judgment by entering a number. They can use this table to determine it; in this case they would enter a 3 in favor of cost:\n\nContinuing our example, let's say they make the following judgments about all the comparisons of criteria, entering them into the software as numbers gotten from the table: as stated, cost is moderately important (3) over safety; also, cost is very strongly important (7) over style, and is moderately important (3) over capacity. Safety is extremely more important (9) than style, and of equal importance (1) to capacity. Capacity is very strongly important (7) over style.\n\nWe could show those judgments in a table like this:\n\nThe AHP software uses mathematical calculations to convert these judgments to priorities for each of the four criteria. The details of the calculations are beyond the scope of this article, but are readily available elsewhere. The software also calculates a consistency ratio that expresses the internal consistency of the judgments that have been entered.\n\nIn this case the judgments showed acceptable consistency, and the software used the family's inputs to assign these new priorities to the criteria:\n\nYou can duplicate this analysis at this online demonstration site; use the Line by Line Method by clicking its button, and don't forget to enter a negative number if the Criterion on the left is less important than the one on the right. If you are having trouble, click here for help. IMPORTANT: The demo site is designed for convenience, not accuracy. The priorities it returns may differ somewhat from those returned by rigorous AHP calculations. Nevertheless, it is useful in showing the mechanics of the pairwise comparison process. Once you are comfortable with the demo, you can experiment by entering your own judgments for the criteria in question. If your judgments are different from those of the Jones family, your priorities will possibly be quite different from theirs.\n\nLook again at the above diagram and note that the Subcriteria still show their default priorities. This is because the decision makers haven't entered any judgments about them. So next on the family's agenda is to pairwise compare the four Subcriteria under Cost, then the two Subcriteria under Capacity. They will compare them following the same pattern as they did for the Criteria.\n\nWe could imagine the result of their comparisons yielding the priorities shown here:\n\nAt this point, all the comparisons for Criteria and Subcriteria have been made, and the AHP software has derived the local priorities for each group at each level. One more step can be made here. We know how much the priority of each Criterion contributes to the priority of the Goal. Since we also know how much the priority of each Subcriterion contributes to the priority of its parent, we (and the AHP software) can calculate the global priority of each Subcriterion. That will show us the priority of each Subcriterion with respect to the Goal. The global priorities throughout the hierarchy will add up to 1.000, like this:\n\nBased on the judgments entered by the family, the AHP has derived the priorities for the factors against which each of the six cars will be compared. They are shown, from highest to lowest, in the table below. Notice that Cost and Capacity will not be evaluated directly, but that each of their Subcriteria will be evaluated on its own:\n\nThe next step is to evaluate each of the cars with respect to these factors. In the technical language of AHP, we will pairwise compare the alternatives with respect to their covering criteria.\n\nPairwise comparing the Alternatives with respect to the Criteria\nThe family can evaluate alternatives against their covering criteria in any order they choose. In this case, they choose the order of decreasing priority of the covering criteria. That means Purchase Price first.\n\nPurchase price\nThe family has established a budget of $25,000 for buying the new car, but they are willing to consider alternatives whose price exceeds their budget. To refresh your mind, here are the six cars they are considering—in AHP terminology, the six alternatives—along with their purchase prices: \n\nKnowing that they will have a lot of pairwise comparisons to make, the family prepared this worksheet to help them. It shows comparative information about the price and budget status of each pair of cars:\n\nNow, what do they do?\n\nFirst they might compare the purchase price of the Accord Sedan to that of the Accord Hybrid. If they stick purely to arithmetic, they could say that the Sedan is favored by 1.5, since the Hybrid's price is about 1.5 times that of the Sedan, and a lower price is better. They could follow that pattern through all 15 of the comparisons, and it would give a mathematically consistent set of comparisons.\n\nBut merely entering the numbers wouldn't take into account things like the $25,000 budget, or the value to the family of saving, say, $5,000 vs. $1,000 on a purchase. Things like that can be highly important in making decisions, and their importance can vary greatly with the situation and the people involved. Some families might never want to exceed their budget. Others might be willing to exceed it by a few dollars or a few per cent, but very unwilling to go further. Still others might not care much if they spend double their budget on the car. Because the AHP allows decision-makers to enter their judgments about the data, rather than just the data themselves, it can deal with all these situations and more.\n\nLet's say that the Jones family is willing to exceed their budget by up to $1,000, but anything more is unacceptable. They \"never say never,\" however—budget-busting cars will score as low as possible on the purchase price, but won't be removed from the list of alternatives. And for cars priced under budget, a $1,000 difference in price doesn't matter much to the Joneses, but a $5,000 difference is strongly important, and a $10,000 difference is extreme. They might enter the following intensities into the AHP software (throughout this example, the judgments of decision-makers are shaded in green):\n\nYou can follow the family's thinking by looking at the rationale for each judgment. Whenever a car that is under budget is compared with one that is over budget by more than $1,000, the former is extremely preferred. For cars under budget, a $1,000 less expensive car is slightly preferred, a $5,000 one is strongly preferred, and a $6,000 one is even more strongly preferred. When both cars are well over budget (comparison #6), they are equally preferred, which is to say they are equally undesirable. Because budget status and absolute price difference are enough to make each comparison, the ratio of prices never enters into the judgments.\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Purchase Price:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the purchase price of each model contributes to the subcriterion of Purchase Price. The global priorities show how much the purchase price of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nSafety\nComparing the alternatives on the basis of Safety is much less objective than comparing them on Purchase Price. Purchase prices are measured in dollars and can be determined to the penny. People can easily agree on the meaning of a $20,360 purchase price, and can rationally compare it to all the other prices, using methods and calculations that are understood and accepted by all.\n\nBut \"safety\" eludes our efforts even to define it in an objective way. Not only that, but the objective measurements of safety are limited and not readily comparable from car to car.\n\nThe government conducts objective crash tests, but they are incomplete measures of the \"safety\" of a given car. Also, the crash tests only compare the members of a single class of cars, such as Midsize Cars or Minivans. Is a midsize car with 100% 5-star safety ratings equally as safe as a minivan with the same ratings? It's not exactly clear. And when evaluating minivans that have 5-star ratings in all categories but one, who can say if the one with four stars for \"Frontal Impact, Driver's Side\" is safer than the one whose four stars are in \"Side Impact, Rear Occupant?\" There's really no way to tell.\n\nIn spite of these difficulties, the AHP provides a rational way to evaluate the relative safety of different cars.\n\nLet's assume that the Jones family has researched the Safety of the six Hondas they are considering. They will have found that all of them are among the safest cars on the road. All six are \"Top Safety Picks\" of the IIHS safety standards organization. All of them do very well in the crash testing programs of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But there are differences between them, and the family wants to factor the differences into their decision. \"Your car can never be too safe.\"\n\nThe worksheet below includes the data that the family has decided to evaluate. They believe that a heavier car is a safer car, so they've documented the curb weights of their alternatives. They have investigated the results of government crash tests, and they've summarized the results on the worksheet:\n\nThe family will consider everything in the worksheet as they compare their alternatives. They are not safety experts, but they can apply their life experience to making decisions about the safety ratings. They all feel safer when driving a car that is significantly heavier than another one. One family member has seen two gruesome rollover accidents, and is terrified of a vehicle rolling over with her inside. She insists that the family car has the highest possible Rollover Rating.\n\nHere are the weights that the Jones family enters for the alternatives regarding Safety (throughout this example, orange shading is used for judgments where A is favored; yellow shading is used for B):\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Safety:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the safety of each model contributes to the Criterion of Safety. The global priorities show how much the Safety of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nPassenger capacity\nThis characteristic is easy to evaluate. The alternatives can carry either four or five or eight passengers. Here are the figures:\n\nThe family has decided that four is barely enough, five is perfect for their needs, and eight is just a little bit better than five. Here are their judgments:\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Passenger Capacity:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the passenger capacity of each model contributes to the Subcriterion of Passenger Capacity. The global priorities show how much the passenger capacity of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nFuel costs\nAfter careful consideration, the Jones family believes that no matter which car they buy, they will drive it the same number of miles per year. In other words, there is nothing about any of the alternatives, including the price of fuel or the car's fuel consumption per mile, that would cause it to be driven more or fewer miles than any other alternative. They also believe that the government MPG rating is an accurate basis on which to compare the fuel consumption of the cars. Here is a worksheet showing the government MPG ratings of the Jones family alternatives:\n\nThey believe, therefore, that the fuel cost of any alternative vs. any other depends exclusively on the MPG ratings of the two cars. So the pairwise judgments they enter for any two cars will be inversely proportional to their MPG ratings. In other words, if car A has exactly twice the MPG rating of car B, the Fuel Cost for car B will be exactly twice that of car A. This table shows the judgments they will enter for all the comparisons:\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Fuel Cost:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the fuel cost of each model contributes to the subcriterion of Fuel Costs. The global priorities show how much the fuel cost of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nResale value\nWhen the family researched Resale Value, they learned that lending institutions keep statistics on the market value of different models after various time periods. These estimated \"residual values\" are used for leasing, and are typically based on a limit of driven per year. Actual residual values depend on the condition of the car, and can vary with market conditions.\n\nThe Joneses are going to buy their car, not lease it, and they expect to drive it more than 12,000 miles per year, but they agree among themselves that the leasing figures are a good basis on which to compare the alternatives under consideration. Their bank gave them this table showing the residual value of each alternative after four years and :\n\nAs they look at the table of residual values, they see that the residual value of a CR-V is 25% higher than that of a Pilot (0.55 is 125% of 0.44). They reason that such a greatly higher residual value is an indication of a better or more desirable car, so they want to place a premium on cars with relatively high residual value. After some thought and discussion, they decide that, when comparing residual values, they want to look at the higher one as a percentage of the lower, and assign their intensities on that basis. Where one model has a residual value that is less than 105% of another, they consider the residual values as equal for all practical purposes. Where one model has a residual value that is 125% of the residual value of another, they consider the former model as quite strongly more important, desirable, valuable, etc., as indicated by its much higher resale value. With a bit more thought and discussion, they decide to make their judgments on this basis:\n\nThey realize that not every family would do it this way, but this way seems best for them. This table shows the judgments they will enter for their Resale Value comparisons:\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Resale Value:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the resale value of each model contributes to the Subcriterion of Resale Value. The global priorities show how much the resale value of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nMaintenance costs\nThe Jones family researched maintenance costs for the cars under consideration, but they didn't find any hard figures. The closest they got was Consumer Reports magazine, which publishes 17 separate maintenance ratings for every car on the market. Their Hondas ranked very well, with all ratings \"Much Better Than Average,\" except for a few on the Pilot and Odyssey. The Pilot got \"Better Than Average\" for its audio system and the user rating, and \"Average\" for body integrity. The Odyssey got \"Better Than Average\" for body hardware and power equipment, and \"Average\" for brakes, body integrity, and user rating.\n\nThe Joneses also asked their favorite mechanic to evaluate the maintenance costs for their six cars. Using tire prices and mileage estimates, he came up with figures for tire costs over of driving. He didn't have figures for brake costs, but he said they'd be about twice as much for the SUVs and minivans as they would for the sedans. He also cautioned them that the battery in the Accord Hybrid was an expensive repair item, and that the engine placement on the Odyssey made it a more expensive car to work on.\n\nThe family created this worksheet to keep track of all their information about maintenance costs:\n\nEven though every column on the worksheet contains a different type of information, the Joneses can use it to make reasonable, rational judgments about Maintenance Costs. Here are the judgments they will enter:\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Maintenance Costs:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the projected maintenance cost of each model contributes to the subcriterion of Maintenance Costs. The global priorities show how much the maintenance cost of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nStyle\nThe family decided that Style is important to them, but how can they determine the \"style\" of each of the six alternatives? \"Style\" is a pretty subjective concept—it can truly be said that \"style is in the eye of the beholder.\" Yet through the method of pairwise comparison, the AHP gives the Jones family a way to evaluate the \"style\" of the cars they are considering.\n\nHonda's web site provides photos of each of the alternatives. It also has videos, commercials, rotatable 360° views, color chips, and more, all available to help family members evaluate the Style of each car. The family can compare their alternatives two-by-two on Style, using the tools on the web site to help them make their judgments. They did just that, and here is the record of their judgments:\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following local priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Style:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the style of each model contributes to the Style Criterion. The global priorities show how much the Style of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nCargo capacity\nThe Cargo Capacity of each alternative, measured in cubic feet, is listed in the manufacturer's specifications for each vehicle. The Joneses don't really know how it is calculated, but they trust that it's a good indication of how much cargo can be packed into a vehicle. This worksheet shows the cargo capacities of the Jones' alternatives:\n\nCargo capacities for the alternatives vary from 14 to . If they wanted to, the Jones family could enter these capacities directly into the AHP software. But that would mean that, when considering Cargo Capacity, a car with . of it would be over ten times as desirable as one with only 14. Given the car's use as a family vehicle, that doesn't seem quite right. So the family looks at the available capacities and determines that a . trunk is perfectly fine for their needs, that something about five times larger is slightly better, and that something about ten times larger is moderately so. These judgments correspond to values of 1, 2, and 3 on the AHP's Fundamental Scale.\n\nHere are the judgments they would enter into the AHP software:\n\nWhen the judgments shown above are entered, the AHP software returns the following local priorities for the six alternatives with respect to Cargo Capacity:\n\nThe local priorities show how much the cargo capacity of each model contributes to the subcriterion of Cargo Capacity. The global priorities show how much the cargo capacity of each model contributes to the overall goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family.\n\nMaking the decision\nIn the end, the AHP software arranges and totals the global priorities for each of the alternatives. Their grand total is 1.000, which is identical to the priority of the goal. Each alternative has a global priority corresponding to its \"fit\" to all the family's judgments about all those aspects of Cost, Safety, Style and Capacity. Here is a summary of the global priorities of the alternatives:\n\nThe Odyssey Minivan, with a global priority of 0.220, is the alternative that contributes the most to the goal of choosing the best car for the Jones family. The Accord Sedan is a close second, with a priority of 0.213. The other models have considerably less priority than those two. In descending order, they are CR-V SUV, Accord Hybrid, Element SUV, and Pilot SUV.\n\nThe Analytic Hierarchy Process has shown the Joneses that the Odyssey Minivan best satisfies all their criteria and judgments, followed closely by the Accord Sedan. The other alternatives fall significantly short of meeting their criteria. The family's next step is up to them. They might just go out and buy an Odyssey, or they might use the AHP or other means to refine their decision between the Odyssey and the Accord Sedan.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n R ahp package – The R open source ahp package provides an implementation of this example.\n AHPy - AHPy provides a worked example of this problem in its README\n\nGroup decision-making"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"how did he amplify the audio frequency?",
"by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification.",
"did he have any problems?",
"It was found that de Forest's \"gassy\" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines.",
"how did he fix it?",
"by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents",
"how much did they purchase it for?",
"for $50,000."
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
what did he do after?
| 6 |
what did Lee de Forest do after?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls,
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| true |
[
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"how did he amplify the audio frequency?",
"by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification.",
"did he have any problems?",
"It was found that de Forest's \"gassy\" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines.",
"how did he fix it?",
"by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents",
"how much did they purchase it for?",
"for $50,000.",
"what did he do after?",
"In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls,"
] |
C_527e4a5b0e304e788ceeb818018b4c25_0
|
Did they use it for anything else?
| 7 |
Did AT&T use innovation for anything else other than telephone calls?
|
Lee de Forest
|
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni
| false |
[
"A cost object is a term used primarily in cost accounting to describe something to which costs are assigned. Common examples of cost objects are: product lines, geographic territories, customers, departments or anything else for which management would like to quantify cost.\n\nCost object is anything for which a separate measurement of cost is required. Cost object may be a product, a service, a project, etc.\n\nThe use of cost objects is common within activity based costing and Grenzplankostenrechnung systems.\n\nSee also\nCost centre (business)\n\nReferences\n\nCosts\nManagement accounting",
"Thanks for the Ether is the debut studio album of Rasputina, released on August 6, 1996, on Columbia Records. The album was recorded at Sear Sound Recording Studio in New York City, and produced by Jimmy Boyle and Melora Creager. The cover art and packaging was designed by Creager. The album did not chart in any country and it did not sell many copies. It contains a quirky and eclectic collection of songs and spoken-word narration. It is also known for introducing the band's pioneering use of distortion effects pedals on their cellos, single-handedly launching the underground genre known as cello rock.\n\nOn October 1, 1996, the band appeared as the musical guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien to promote the album. \n\nIn 1998, the track \"Transylvanian Concubine\" was featured in the season 2 episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, \"Surprise\".\n\nReception\nIn a review for AllMusic, Vincent Jefferies called Thanks for the Ether \"a rare accomplishment\", saying \"If only more mope rockers, shoegazers, death metalers, and other dour stylists could be so clever, their music would become many times more listenable,\" and \"Rasputina paint a completely new gothic landscape on this debut, and fans of the genre or anything dark and artful simply must own it.\" In a review for CMJ, Douglas Wolk praised the band's \"sly humor and self-awareness\", and said of the album, \"Thanks For The Ether has a couple of conceptual misfires, but even the lesser stuff is pleasingly unlike anything else: they err on the side of adventurousness, which is always a good idea.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n Melora Creager – Cello, vocals, producer, art direction\n Julia Kent – Cello\n Carpella Parvo – Cello\n Norm Block – Drums\n Jimmy Boyle – Producer\n Michael Brauer – Mixing\n Greg Calbi – Mastering\n Greg Gordon – Engineer\n Dave Shiffman – Engineer\n\nReferences\n\n1996 debut albums\nRasputina (band) albums\nColumbia Records albums"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.