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Later work
Alexander's work since 2000 has included:
2001 - Theatre Clwyd - An Enemy of the People
2001 - Northampton Rep - The Importance of Being Earnest
2002 - National Theatre - Frozen (Bryony Lavery), revival of Alexander’s award-winning production starring Josie Lawrence, Anita Dobson and Tom Georgeson
2003 - National Theatre - Mappa Mundi (Shelagh Stephenson), world premiere starring Lia Williams and Alun Armstrong
2004 - RSC - Titus Andronicus starring David Bradley
2005 - RSC - King Lear starring Corin Redgrave
2007 - Zurich Ballet -A Midsummer Night's Dream
2008 - Mark Taper Forum Los Angeles - The School of the Night (Peter Whelan), revival of Alexander's award-winning production for the RSC
2009 - Nottingham Playhouse - Glamour (Stephen Lowe)
2011 - The Arts Theatre London - Bette and Joan (Anton Burge)
2011 – 2015 Productions at LAMDA: Twelfth Night, Summerfolk, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice.
2012 - NWCTC Portland USA - Othello
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2012 - UK tour - Bette and Joan (Anton Burge)
2014 – 2015 Summer school for Shakespeare in Italy at University of Urbino.
2015 BBC Radio4 Classic Serial - The Sea, The Sea (starring Jeremy Irons)
2015 Production at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School of The Merchant of Venice.
2017 Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - The Two Gentlemen of Verona
2017 LAMDA - As You Like It
2017 voice-over for 50 Years of Fish & Chips
2018 Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - The Taming of the Shrew
2020 Shakespeare in Italy - a specialist blog, Shakespeare in the rehearsal room https://www.shakespeareinitaly.org.uk/News-Blog/Blog
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Awards
In 1978, Alexander received the Binkie Beaumont Award for Best New Director and in 1986, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director for The Merry Wives of Windsor at the RSC.
Personal life
In 1977, Alexander married actor and painter Juliet Harmer. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.
References
External links
Bill Alexander at the Internet off-Broadway Database
DeBrett's
The Royal Shakespeare Company
Northwest Classical Theatre Company
1948 births
Living people
Laurence Olivier Award winners
British theatre directors
People from Hunstanton
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Jack O'Lantern is an alias used by several supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
Publication history
Jason Macendale first appeared as Jack O'Lantern in Machine Man #19 (February 1981).
The Steven Mark Levins version of Jack O'Lantern first appeared in Captain America #396 (January 1992).
The third version of Jack O'Lantern first appeared in The Spectacular Spider-Man #241 (December 1996).
The fourth version of Jack O'Lantern first appeared in Dark Reign: Made Men #1 (November 2009).
The fifth version of Jack O'Lantern first appeared in Venom vol. 2 #1 (2011).
Fictional character biography
Jason Macendale
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Jason Macendale was a mercenary who was recruited out of college and trained by the CIA and various para-military organizations. Considered a liability due to his violent nature and amoral personality, this rejection turned Macendale to be a mercenary and ultimately a costumed terrorist. He adopted the Jack O'Lantern alter ego, engaging in combat with Machine Man as his first opponent followed by Spider-Man for the first time.
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Macendale was later hired to retrieve the Hobgoblin's lost battle van, pulling off the mission successfully despite Spider-Man's untimely appearance. When Flash Thompson insulted the Hobgoblin on national television which had incurred the Hobgoblin's wrath to frame Thompson so that criminal enemies might target Flash instead, Macendale subsequently broke Thompson out of jail, thinking he was doing the Hobgoblin a favor. But Macendale ruined the Hobgoblin's plans to operate "under the radar" while Thompson was in custody. When the Kingpin temporarily abdicated being the organized crime's head on the eastern seaboard and a resulting gang war tore New York City apart, Macendale wished to increase his underworld status and formed an alliance with the Hobgoblin. The Hobgoblin ultimately double-crossed Macendale when the two were fleeing a horde of police officers. Macendale vowed revenge, ultimately hiring the Foreigner to have the Hobgoblin killed. After his co-conspirator's supposed
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death, all known copies of Goblin weapons and costumes were handed over to Macendale who took over the Hobgoblin identity in order to steal notoriety within the supervillain community. However, Macendale was exposed by the Kingpin's organization and fought a battle against Spider-Man which was meant to prove his abilities but was foiled. To add to the embarrassment, Spider-Man was obviously drunk when they fought and still won.
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Deciding he needed abilities like the original Green Goblin and Hobgoblin if he was to have a similar reputation, Macendale attempted to steal the Goblin secret formula for superhuman strength. After failing to do so, he intimated Harry Osborn by threatening Osborn's loved ones for wanting the Goblin formula, resulting in a confrontation between himself and the second Green Goblin where Macendale was overcame. During a demonic invasion of Manhattan, Macendale felt dejected and humiliated. Offering to sell his soul in exchange for a demon's power, the demon N'astirh fused a demon to Macendale. Enhanced by the demon's power but horrified as his handsome face transformed into a demonic one, Macendale blamed his suffering on Spider-Man and Osborn. He hunted Spider-Man down for revenge. With his demonic powers, Macendale defeated Spider-Man easily but Mary Jane Watson intervened before he could deliver the killing blow.
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Having finally been made into the notorious supervillain he hoped to be at the cost of his humanity, Macendale put his personal enmity for Spider-Man aside and used his demonic powers to be a top contract killer. He offered his mercenary services to Hammerhead and Tombstone to eliminate Robbie Robertson but is stopped by Spider-Man and Puma. Macendale next conspired with Carrion to eliminate Spider-Man before his co-conspirator ultimately nearly took both villains out instead. Macendale goes after Doctor Strange but an illusion spell is cast to try to calm the monstrous man/demon and Macendale sees his true face in reflections of himself. Macendale was later stiff-armed by Doctor Octopus into joining the Sinister Six's second incarnation which twice tried to take over the world, failing due to counter measures by Spider-Man, Hulk, Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four and many more heroes.
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As an independent mercenary and criminal, Macendale would clash with many other heroes, including Darkhawk, and Sleepwalker. However, the insane demon who shared his body acts dominate but gets destabilized long enough for Macendale to briefly regain his sanity during conflicts with Spider-Man and other heroes; once involving Moon Knight, and twice involving the two Ghost Riders (Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze). Macendale ultimately expelled the demon referred to as the Demogoblin out of his body. Despite Richard Fisk want vengeance for Ned Leeds, he has a reluctant partnership with Fisk but later tried to eliminate the Blood Rose and the new Kingpin but is foiled by Spider-Man. In a rare event, Macendale teamed up with Spider-Man to defeat the duo of Demogoblin and Doppelganger. Macendale was hired by the Foreigner to assassinate Moon Knight and Nick Katzenberg only to be stopped by Moon Knight and Spider-Man, and turned over to the authorities. Macendale obtained Kraven the Hunter's
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strength formula, which enabled him to easily defeat his demonic doppelganger Demogoblin who then died saving a young child in battle.
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Macendale was defeated once more by Spider-Man along with Coldheart during an attempt to kidnap Macendale's long-lost son. However, Macendale's reunion would be an unhappy one as Macendale attempted (unsuccessfully) to use his son as a hostage to avoid going back to jail. He would remain in jail for some time before being freed by Gaunt, combating against the second Spider-Man. In exchange for doing Gaunt's bidding, the scientist turned Macendale into a cyborg such as the removal of Macendale's left eye with a new high-tech cybernetic eye. He failed and was once again arrested.
Considered "just a criminal" by Spider-Man, Macendale was viewed as a typical (sociopathic) thug who is not much of a threat as his predecessor and Norman Osborn in comparison.
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Macendale went on trial for his many crimes and found guilty on several counts (including convictions for the original Hobgoblin's acts), disgustingly responding by revealing that Leeds was his predecessor. His continued testimony leads Spider-Man recounting encounters with the original Hobgoblin, and thus realized that Ned cannot possibly be the supervillain due to lack of powers (despite being killed when Macendale paid the Foreigner). Despite Macendale being in prison, Roderick Kingsley broke into prison, taunting him as an unworthy successor and murdered Macendale.
A later version of Jack O'Lantern is captured by S.H.I.E.L.D.; this individual used several false aliases including Jason Macendale, Maguire Beck (Mysterio's cousin), and Mad Jack (Daniel Berkhart). Jack O'Lantern's true identity was never revealed but it was not any of the aliases he was using.
Steven Mark Levins
The second version of Jack O'Lantern was introduced as an enemy of Captain America and Spider-Man.
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This version of the character was subjected to much controversy, due to the fact that several years after his introduction he was rebranded "Mad Jack" and was heavily featured in the pages of The Spectacular Spider-Man during the late 1990s. Mad Jack was ultimately revealed to be the duo of Daniel Berkhart (ex-Mysterio) and Maguire Beck (Mysterio's cousin). It was not until the one-shot New Avengers Most Wanted (a character compendium) that the second iteration was confirmed as a separate entity: Steven Mark Levins. However, the character's name would not be used in-story until Ghost Rider vol. 5 #10 (2007).
This incarnation was a professional criminal, and a partner of Blackwing. Alongside Blackwing, he searched Skullhouse and first battled Captain America. With Blackwing, he was then admitted as a provisional member of the loosely knit band of the Red Skull's operatives called the Skeleton Crew.
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Soon after that, Jack O'Lantern fought Crossbones and Diamondback, and captured Diamondback. Diamondback tried to escape, and Jack O'Lantern fought Diamondback in mid-air. He was ultimately defeated in combat by the Falcon, and taken to the Vault.
He also worked as an enforcer of the Golem and in this capacity, fought the Hood when he interfered in Golem's machinations.
Jack O'Lantern later fought Union Jack alongside Shockwave and Jackhammer to attack the Thames Tunnel.
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Following his defeat, Levins was recruited to serve as part of the Thunderbolts hero-hunting squad during the "Civil War" storyline. While pursuing Spider-Man through the Manhattan sewers alongside the Jester, Levins was killed when the Punisher shot Levins in the head, killing him instantly. However, death would not be the end of Levins's story. His headless corpse was reanimated and possessed by a fragment of Lucifer's soul. He now exhibits the ability to detach, levitate and explode his head (now replaced with a real life pumpkin) among other powers. However, the Ghost Rider was able to exorcise him by ripping his heart from his chest, setting it aflame and putting it back in his chest, causing it to explode inside.
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During the "Dark Reign" storyline, Levins was among the dead characters seen in Erebus by Hercules. He was later seen on Pluto's jury (alongside Abomination, Armless Tiger Man, Artume, Heinrich Zemo, Commander Kraken, Iron Monger, Kyknos, Nessus, Orka, Scourge of the Underworld, and Veranke) for Zeus' trial.
During the "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy" storyline, Levins's Jack O'Lantern form was among the characters that were cloned by the Jackal. He got involved in a fight with the other cloned villains, causing the Prowler's clone to break it up.
Jack O'Lantern later battled Deadpool after stealing 20 million dollars from the Queen Kathleen gambling ship owned by Tombstone.
Jack O'Lantern later led a similar gang called the Jack O'Lanterns. When four of the Jack O'Lanterns turned out to be sleeper agents working for Finisher and Chameleon, Levins helped to contain the rampage by fighting the Jack O'Lanterns.
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During the "Sinister War" storyline, Jack O'Lantern was with Foreigner, Taskmaster, Black Ant, Chance, and Slyde when they are sent by Kindred to attack Spider-Man after Kindred had disrupted their armored car robbery.
Mad Jack
There were two people who assumed the Mad Jack alias while wearing the Jack O'Lantern costume:
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Former Mysterio Daniel Berkhart was approached by Norman Osborn providing a version of the Jack O'Lantern costume, under the "Mad Jack" alias. Under Osborn's orders, Berkhart kidnapped John Jameson and exposed to mind-altering chemicals to be turned into a mind controlled pawn: the super-powered wolf alter-ego persona Man-Wolf. Jameson was then sent to attack J. Jonah Jameson, to terrorize and cow into being subservient towards Osborn's scheme to buy the Daily Bugle. During this time, he also stalked Jameson's wife, Marla, implying that the two had a past relationship that Berkhart sought to rekindle.
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After Berkhart's working relationship with Osborn ended when the Green Goblin participated in a magical ritual that rendered him completely insane, Berkhart was then approached by Maguire Beck, the female cousin of Quentin Beck (the original Mysterio). Maguire convinced Berkhart to re-assume the Mysterio identity following her cousin's suicide and the "Mad Jack" costumed identity was retired. But when the two sought to eliminate Spider-Man, Daredevil, J. Jonah Jameson and several other mutual enemies, the two revived the "Mad Jack" persona, with Maguire using holograms and lifelike robotic versions of Mad Jack and Berkhart himself to serve as proxies for herself while she laid in secret. In the end, Maguire was caught and exposed though due to her usage of Berkhart androids but Daredevil and Spider-Man were left unsure as to whether or not Berkhart was truly involved. However Berkhart did ultimately escape with a Mysterio costume, in the confusion at the end.
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In the miniseries Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, Francis Klum purchased Mysterio's weapons and gimmick in order to be yet another new Mysterio. The seller, Kingpin, said he had acquired the arsenal "from Jack-O-Lantern".
Brother of Steven Levins
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A fourth version of Jack O'Lantern is introduced during the "Dark Reign" storyline, is an unnamed man who claimed to be Steve Levins' brother. He has since been caught by the police after killing the 15 year old daughter of his neighbor and drinking his victim's blood as part of his plot to avenge Steve. This man was shown to be able to transform into a Jack O'Lantern-headed villain using the powers of a mystical demon. Detective Tom and Detective Steve interrogated the man. When asked about the pact with the demon, the man transformed into his Jack O'Lantern form where he is now surrounded by bats. When Detective Tom states that he is getting the electric chair, Jack O'Lantern states that he's just biding his time until his "dark lord" arrives to set him free. He was later released by a lawyer sent by Norman Osborn who claimed that Jack O'Lantern is a material witness to a national security case. The lawyer drives away with Jack O'Lantern as Norman plans to gain his services.
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During the "Heroic Age", Steve Rogers knew about Jack O'Lantern, noting that Osborn didn't use Jack O'Lantern and suspects that Jack O'Lantern will continue his crusade to avenge his brother.
Crime Master's Jack O'Lantern
A new version of Jack O'Lantern appears working for the third Crime Master. As a child, the kid that would become Jack O'Lantern had disobeyed his parents and mistreated animals. While going as Jack O'Lantern for Halloween, he came across a house that Crime Master was in. The boy was taken under Crime Master's wing and trained him to be an assassin. It was with this training that the boy had killed his parents.
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One of his jobs brings him into conflict with the government operative Venom. During this conflict, Venom threw a live grenade into his mouthpiece and it dislocated his jaw. Even after the explosion, he was still able to run and retreat. Later, Crime Master is able to use contacts to discover Venom's true identity Flash Thompson, and has Jack O'Lantern kidnap Betty Brant (Flash's girlfriend) in exchange for Venom letting Crime Master get a shipment of Antarctic Vibranium. When Venom leaves to rescue Betty, he is distracted by Spider-Man's appearance, which drives the Venom symbiote into an uncontrollable rage. Eventually Betty is rescued at the last second by Spider-Man, with Venom then trying to recapture Crime Master. However, Venom is attacked by Jack O'Lantern who proclaims Flash as his first real nemesis, and desiring revenge for the disfiguring grenade explosion, also mockingly calling out Venom's first name. While it hasn't been confirmed, this depiction claims to have killed
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every other person to go by the Jack O'Lantern name in an effort to "clean up the brand". Jack O'Lantern is a member of the Crime Master's Savage Six.
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Jack O'Lantern in his human guise goes first and targets Betty only to end up fighting Venom. During the fight, Megatak assists Jack O'Lantern and punches Venom's phone before he can make a call to the Avengers for help. Jack O'Lantern targets Jessie Thompson and ends up fighting Venom. Venom grabs Jack O'Lantern's gun and fires on him before Jack O'Lantern spews acid on him, causing Venom to cool down in the fountain.
Jack O'Lantern later goes on a killing spree which escalated on Father's Day. Venom tracked him to a sewer thanks to the hidden trail Jack O'Lantern had left behind for him. There, he discovered that Jack had dug up the corpse of Flash's father and blew up the room. In the fight that ensued, it looked like Jack O'Lantern was going to win until Venom took his father's gun from the holster and shot him. Venom chose not to kill Jack O'Lantern.
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Jack O'Lantern was incarcerated at the Raft. He managed to continue his operations using an employee of a storage facility as a replacement who Jack O'Lantern's robots brainwashed.
During the "AXIS" storyline, Jack O'Lantern appears as a member of Magneto's unnamed supervillain group during the fight against the Red Skull's Red Onslaught form. His moral compass was inverted with all of those in Genosha when a spell meant to affect only the Red Skull affected everyone on the island. He later rejoined the (now-inverted) villains to prevent the inverted X-Men from detonating a gene bomb which would've killed everyone on Earth who was not a mutant. When a reinversion spell was cast, Jack O'Lantern was evil once again.
During the "Avengers: Standoff!" storyline, Jack O'Lantern was an inmate of Pleasant Hill, a gated community established by S.H.I.E.L.D.
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During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Jack O'Lantern appears as a member of the Army of Evil where they attack Manhattan in retaliation for what happened at Pleasant Hill.
Jack O'Lantern is eventually hunted down for his many crimes by Eddie Brock, and is beaten within an inch of his life. Brock lets him live, although it is implied Brock breaks Jack's spine and leaves him in a critical condition before being teleported away to a parallel universe.
Jack O'Lantern was hospitalized following this, and underwent plastic surgery to restore his face and intensive therapy. Jack O'Lantern was released to civilian life, but grew bored almost immediately and returned to supervillainy. Following Deadpool to Wakanda, Jack O'Lantern battles both Deadpool and Black Panther until Deadpool shot him in the head, killing him.
Imposters
There have been different unnamed imposters of Jack O'Lantern:
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As mentioned above, Crime-Master's Jack O'Lantern brainwashed a factory worker into posing as him. He was among the villains gathered by Lord Ogre to attack Venom. Jack O'Lantern later attacked Flash's neighbor Andrea Benton which ended in her father's death as Flash protected Andrea. When Andrea attacked Jack O'Lantern for what happened to her father, the mask came off and Venom saw that this wasn't Crime-Master's Jack O'Lantern. The factory worker explained that he worked at a storage facility and was hypnotized into being Jack O'Lantern by one of Jack O'Lantern's robots. After Venom prevented Andrea from killing him, the imposter Jack O'Lantern was taken into police custody and slipped into a coma moments later.
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An unnamed petty criminal stumbled upon the Jack O'Lantern equipment and became Jack O'Lantern in order to become a supervillain and an arms dealer. He was supplying weapon to criminals from Norman Osborn's armory which attracted the attention of Venom and the police. The Venom symbiote went berserk and ripped out his left eye. After escaping from Venom, the second Jack O'Lantern imposter was seen at the Bar With No Name where he told his tale to the patrons. The Bar With No Name was later attacked by Venom causing the patrons to flee. During the "War of the Realms" storyline, the second Jack O'Lantern imposter found one of Malekith the Accursed's War Witches having teleported into his apartment following a fight with a Dreamstone-enhanced Eddie Brock. Seeing as they have a mutual enemy in Venom, the War Witch conjures another Dreamstone and gives it to Jack O'Lantern. Jack O'Lantern accepts the offer from the War Witch as he reaches out to touch the Dreamstone.
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Jack O'Lanterns
The Jack O'Lanterns are a group of mercenaries led by Levins who wear the same costumes and wield the same equipment of Jack O'Lantern. They fought Spider-Man and Teresa Parker when they tried to capture Chameleon at the time when he was going to sell the Infinity Formula to Foreigner.
Foreigner later deployed the Jack O'Lanterns when he persuaded Chance into partaking in a bet to obtain Spider-Man's web-shooters. They were successful in their mission.
When four of the Jack O'Lanterns turned out to be sleeper agents working for Finisher and Chameleon after the Catalyst was obtained from Empire State University, they tried to steal the Catalyst and the Clairvoyant for Finisher. Levins helped to contain the rampage by fighting the Jack O'Lanterns.
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Powers and abilities
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Jason Macendale originally possessed no superhuman powers, but used similar paraphernalia to the Hobgoblin and the Green Goblin; both his Jack O'Lantern and Hobgoblin personas used a rocket-powered glider, pumpkin bombs, and gauntlet blasters. During the time in which a demon was grafted to him, he had superhuman strength, speed, and agility, as well as hellfire powers enabling him to create weapons and gliders at will. It is implied that his demonic abilities allowed him to create organic fibers strong enough to bind a normal person. After acquiring Kraven the Hunter's formula, Macendale had enhanced his strength, speed, stamina, durability, reflexes, and agility to superhuman levels, thanks to anomalies in his blood left over when he and Demogoblin were one, but this formula's effects seemed to have later wore off. His later cybernetically enhanced body thanks to Mendel Stromm further increased his strength, speed, reflexes, durability, and stamina. Macendale had extensive military
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training in hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, espionage, and knowledge of conventional weaponry. He often used conventional military weapons. When he adopted the Hobgoblin persona, he was able to make improvements to the Goblin glider's maneuverability by utilizing skills he gained from his master's degrees in both mechanical engineering and physics. Macendale was also a sociopath and a sadist, which led to his dishonorable discharge from the military.
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Steven Levins modeled his Jack O'Lantern costume and equipment after those created by his predecessor. Levins wore a complete body armor made of metal-mesh covered in multi-segmented Kevlar panels, incorporating a rigid, articulated shell which can resist a 7-pound bazooka anti-tank warhead. He wore a bulletproof helmet with an internal three hour, compressed air supply. The helmet is equipped with a telescopic infrared image-intensifier for seeing in the dark and 360 degree scanning device for seeing all around himself. The base of the helmet is equipped with a fine network of pinholes which maintain a low temperature, low density flame ("stage-fire") that rings the helmet at all times. The air supply cools the helmet's interior. The helmet is padded to protect his head from injury. Levins is armed with wrist-blasters which can deliver an electrical shock within a range of . He also used various types of grenades, including anesthetic, lachrymatory (tear gas), hallucinogenic, and
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regurgitant gas grenades, smoke grenades, and concussion grenades. The grenades are shaped like spheres or pumpkins. He can fire small grenades from wrist devices. He can also release "ghost-grabbers" which are thick, semi-transparent films which adhere to a victim. Levins rides atop a one-man hovercraft with an electric motor powered by a high density lithium rechargeable battery.
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Daniel Berkhart used the same weapons as the previous incarnations of Jack O'Lantern, along with chemical weapons that cause psychedelic and mind-bending hallucinations. His accomplice Maguire Beck was an expert designer of special effects devices and stage illusions, a master hypnotist, and skilled in chemistry and robotics, including a lifelike robotic black cat. Beck has used her advanced knowledge of computer imaging and virtual reality to improve upon Mysterio's techniques, allowing for Beck to pretend to be Mad Jack via proxies while safely hidden in her secret lair.
The brother of Levins can transform into a demon with the head of a jack-o'-lantern using the powers of an unknown mystical demon.
The fifth incarnation, along with the same general weapons the previous ones used, has a fleet of tiny flying cartoon-styled devil robots. Instead of a hovercraft, he rides a jet-powered "broomstick".
Other versions
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MC2
In the MC2 timeline, Maguire Beck is that Spider-Ham character to lure Spider-Man to the Heartland Entertainment building. Once there, Spider-Man met up with Araña, and together they battled robots created by Jack O'Lantern. Years later, Maguire lured Spider-Girl to the same location. After fighting several Jack O'Lanterns, Spider-Girl finished them off and discovered that Maguire was really a robot.
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Earth-Chaos
On the day before Halloween 13 years after the Chaos! event, Jack O'Lantern launched a scheme to bring about a hell on Earth and take over the world with the proper alignment of cosmos. Raising dead persons and animating dinosaurs, he looked to gather the remaining heroes of the world for the purpose of eliminating them. However, Brother Voodoo (Jericho Drumm) and the Supernaturals were able to overcome his machinations, sending Jack into another dimension. With Jack gone, his minions disappeared and the world was saved. Jack O'Lantern may still be holding the heroes captured from the first Chaos! event in his wand and plotting another takeover of the Earth.
JLA/Avengers
Jack O'Lantern is among the enthralled villains defending Krona's stronghold when the heroes assault it. Tasmanian Devil is shown pushing some rocks onto him.
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Spider-Geddon
In the Spider-Geddon event on Earth-11580, a version of Jack O'Lantern is seen alongside the Green Goblin, Hobgoblin and Demogoblin during the Goblin Night. Under the orders of the Goblin Queen, they try to kill Gwen Stacy, but Spiders-Man arrives and defeats the Goblins.
In other media
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Television
An unidentified incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appears in the Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors animated series episode "Halloween Night at the Museum". This version is the result of Morgan le Fay magically placing a jack-o'-lantern on the head of a security guard (voiced by Drake Bell) to bring about the end of the world. Jack O'Lantern attacks Spider-Man, but once Morgan le Fay is defeated, the security guard is turned back to normal.
The unidentified fifth incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appears in the Spider-Man animated series episode "Bring On the Bad Guys" Pt. 3, voiced by Booboo Stewart. He is one of several supervillains who hunt Spider-Man for a bounty on his head, but is ultimately defeated by the web-slinger and left for the police.
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Video games
The Jason Macendale incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appeared as a mini-boss in the 1990s Spider-Man game.
The Steven Levins incarnation of Jack O'Lantern makes a cameo appearance in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2.
The fourth incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appears as a boss in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
The Jason Macendale incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appears as a boss in Spider-Man Unlimited, voiced by Travis Willingham.
The fourth incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appears in Marvel Avengers Academy, voiced by Matthew Curtis.
The Jason Macendale incarnation of Jack O'Lantern appears as an enhanced costume for the Green Goblin in Marvel Heroes.
Toys
The demonic version of Jason Macendale appears in the Spider-Man Classics line, which was later reworked for the Sinister Six Marvel Legends set and repainted as a Demogoblin figure.
References
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External links
Jason Macendale Jr. (Earth-616) at Marvel Wiki
Hobgoblin (Jason Macendale) at Marvel.com
Jack O'Lantern (Steven Levins) at Marvel.com
Jack O'Lantern (Maguire Beck) at Marvel.com
Grand Comics Database
Profile of Jack O'Lantern (Jason Macendale) at Spiderfan.org
Hobgoblin IV (Jason Macendale) at SpiderFan.org
Profile of Jack O'Lantern (Steven Levins) at Spiderfan.org
Profile of Jack O'Lantern (Daniel Berkhart) at Spiderfan.org
Profile of Jack O'Lantern (Maguire Beck) at Spiderfan.org
Articles about multiple fictional characters
Characters created by Gerry Conway
Characters created by Mark Gruenwald
Characters created by Rick Remender
Characters created by Ross Andru
Characters created by Steve Ditko
Characters created by Tom DeFalco
Comics characters introduced in 1981
Comics characters introduced in 1992
Comics characters introduced in 2011
Fictional assassins
Marvel Comics supervillains
Spider-Man characters code names
Spider-Man characters
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Ahvaz () is a city in the southwest of Iran and the capital of Khuzestan province. Ahvaz's population is about 1,300,000 and its built-up area with the nearby town of Sheybani is home to 1,136,989 inhabitants. It is home to Persians, Arabs, Bakhtiaris, Dezfulis, Shushtaris, and others. Languages spoken in the area include Persian and Arabic, as well as dialects of Luri (Bakhtiari), Dezfuli, Shushtari, and others.
One of the 2 navigable rivers of Iran alongside the Arvand Rud (Shatt al-Arab), the Karun, passes through the middle of the city. Ahvaz has a long history, dating back to the Achaemenid period. In ancient times, the city was one of the main centers of the Academy of Gondishapur.
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Etymology
The word Ahvaz is a Persianized form of the Arabic "Ahwaz" which in turn, is derived from an older Persian word. The Dehkhoda Dictionary specifically defines the "Suq-al-Ahvaz" as "Market of the Khuzis", where "Suq" is the Elamite word for market, and "Ahvaz" is a broken plural () of the form "af'āl" () of the word "Huz", which itself comes from the Persian Huz, from Achaemenid inscriptions where the term first appears. Thus, "Ahvaz" in Persian means "the Huz-i people", which refers to the Khuzi original inhabitants of Khūzestān.
The name of the region appears in medieval Syriac sources as , literally meaning "land of the Huzis".
The term "Huz", meanwhile, is the Old Persian rendition of Suz (Susa-Susiana), the native Elamite name of the region. See Origin of the name Khuzestan and Elam#Etymology for more details.
History
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Ancient history
Ahwaz is the analog of "Avaz" and "Avaja" which appear in Achaemenid emperor Darius's epigraph. This word also appears in the Naqsh-Rostam inscription as "Khaja" or "Khooja".
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First named Ōhrmazd-Ardašēr (Persian: Hormozd ardeshir), Ahvaz was built near the beginning of the Sassanid dynasty on what historians believe to have been the site of the old city of Taryana, a notable city under the Persian Achaemenid dynasty, or the city of Aginis referred to in Greek sources where Nearchus and his fleet entered the Pafitigris. The city was founded either by Ardashir I in 230 (cf. Encyclopædia Iranica, al-Muqaddasi, et al.) or (according to the Middle Persian Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr(shahrestān hā-ye Irānshahr)) by his grandson Hormizd I; the city’s name either combined Ardashir's name with the Zoroastrian name for God, Ōhrmazd, or Hormizd's name with that of his grandfather. It became the seat of the province, and was also referred to as Hūmšēr. During the Sassanid era, an irrigation system and several dams were constructed, and the city prospered. Examples of Sassanid-era dams are Band-e Bala-rud, Band-e Mizan, Band-e Borj Ayar and Band-e Khak. The city replaced
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Susa, the ancient capital of Susiana, as the capital of what was then called Khuzestān.
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The city had two sections; the nobles of the city lived in one part while the other was inhabited by merchants. When Arabs invaded the area in 640, the part of the city home to the nobility was demolished but the Hūj-ī-stānwāčār "Market of Khūz State", the merchant area, remained intact. The city was therefore renamed Sūq al-Ahwāz, "Market of the Khuz", a semi-literal translation of the Persian name of this quarter - Ahwāz being the Arabic broken plural of Hûz, taken from the ancient Persian term for the native Elamite peoples, Hūja (remaining in medieval khūzīg "of the Khuzh" and modern Khuzestān "Khuz State", as noted by Dehkhoda dictionary).
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Medieval history
During the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, Ahwaz flourished as a center for the cultivation of sugarcane and as the home of many well-known scholars. It is discussed by such respected medieval historians and geographers as ibn Hawqal, Tabari, Istakhri, al-Muqaddasi, Ya'qubi, Masudi, and Mostowfi Qazvini. Nearby stood the Academy of Gundishapur, where the modern-day teaching hospital is said to have been first established.
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Ahwaz was devastated in the Mongol invasions of the 13th and 14th centuries and subsequently declined into a village. The dam and irrigation channels, no longer maintained, eroded and finally collapsed early in the 19th century. During this time Ahwaz was primarily inhabited by the original Khuzhis and a small number of Sabians. Although most Arab migrants fled the city, a few stayed. Some minor cultivation continued, while all evidence of sugarcane plantations is still going on in Haft Teppe area in north of Ahwaz, although ruins of sugarcane mills from the medieval era remained in existence. Several ruins of water mills also still remain in Shush and Shushtar.
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Modern history
The seat of the province has, for the most of its history, been in its northern reaches, first at Susa (Shush) and then at Shushtar. During a short spell in the Sasanian era, the capital of the province was moved to its geographical center, where the river town of Hormuz-Ardashir (modern Ahwaz). However, later in the Sasanian time and throughout the Islamic era, the provincial seat returned and stayed at Shushtar, until the late Qajar period. With the increase in the international sea commerce arriving on the shores of Khuzestan, Ahwaz became a more suitable location for the provincial capital. The River Karun is navigable all the way to Ahwaz (above which, the Karun flows through rapids). The town was thus refurbished by the order of the Qajar king, Naser al-Din Shah and renamed after him, Nâseri. Shushtar quickly declined, while Ahwaz/Nâseri prospered to the present day.
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In the 19th century, "Ahwaz was no more than a small borough inhabited mainly by Sabeans (1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants according to Ainsworth in 1835; 700 according to Curzon in 1890)."
In the 1880s, under Qajar rule, the Karun River was dredged and re-opened to commerce. A newly built railway crossed the Karun at Ahwaz. The city again became a commercial crossroads, linking river and rail traffic. The construction of the Suez Canal further stimulated trade. A port city was built near the old village of Ahvaz, and named Bandar-e-Naseri in honor of Nassereddin Shah Qajar.
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Oil was found near Ahwaz in the early 20th century, and the city once again grew and prospered as a result of this newfound wealth. From 1897 to 1925, the city of Ahwaz was in the hands of heshmatoddoleh Ghajar, who acted as governor and Sarhang Reza Gholi Khane Arghoon commander of Ghajari's army based in Khuzestan. Sheikh Khaz'al was recognized by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar as hereditary ruler of Mohammerah, Sardar Asad Bakhtiari as the most powerful leader of Khuzestan's Bakhtiaries. He had power and authority over most regions of Khuzestan, such as Dezful, Shushtar, Izeh, even Ahwaz and Amir mojahede bakhtiari in Ramhormoz and Behbahan. At this time, the newly founded Ahwaz was named Nâseri in honour to its founder Nassereddin Shah Qajar. Afterwards, during the Pahlavi period, it resumed its old name, Ahwaz. The government of the Khūzestān Province was transferred there from Shûshtar in 1926. The Trans-Iranian Railway reached Ahwaz in 1929 and by World War II, Ahwaz had become the
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principal built-up area of the interior of Khūzestān. Professional segregation remained well marked between various groups in that period still feebly integrated: Persians, sub-groupings of Persians and Arabs. Natives of the Isfahan region held an important place in retail trade, owners of cafes and hotels and as craftsmen.
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Iraq attempted to annex Khūzestān and Ahwaz in 1980, resulting in the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). Ahwaz was close to the front lines and suffered badly during the war.
Iraq had pressed its claims to Khūzestān. Iraq had hoped to exacerbate ethnic tensions and win over popular support for the invaders. Most accounts say that the Iranian Arab inhabitants resisted the Iraqis rather than welcome them as liberators. However, some Iranian Arabs claim that as a minority they face discrimination from the central government; they agitate for the right to preserve their cultural and linguistic distinction and more provincial autonomy. See Politics of Khūzestān.
In 1989, the Foolad Ahwaz steel facility was built close to the town. This company is best known for its company-sponsored football club, Foolad F.C., which was the champion of Iran's Premier Football League in 2005.
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In 2005 the city witnessed a series of bomb explosions. Many government sources relate these events to developments in Iraq, accusing foreign governments of organizing and funding Arab separatist groups. The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz claimed credit for several of the bombings, including four bombs on 12 June 2005, that killed 8 people.
Gunmen killed at least 29 people in an attack on a crowd watching a military parade on 22 September 2018.
Bridges
Ahvaz has 9 Bridges Over Karun.
Pol-e Siah (Black Bridge)
Black Bridge, also known as Victory Bridge, is the first bridge over of Ahvaz. The bridge was used in WWII to supply Allies in Soviet Union and it had a vast impact in Allies victory.
White Bridge
White Bridge (Persian: پل سفید), is an arch bridge located in Ahwaz, Iran. The bridge was completed on September 21, 1936 and was inaugurated on November 6, 1936. The bridge remains a symbol of the city still today.
Other 7 bridges are :
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Third bridge, Naderi bridge, Fifth bridge, Sixth bridge, Seventh bridge (Dialogue among civilizations bridge), Cable bridge, and Ninth bridge.
Location and roads
Ahwaz located 100 km north-east of Abadan and is accessible via following routes in addition of a single runway airport:
Tehran-Khorramshahr national railway
Ahvaz-Abadan expressway (145 km)
Ahvaz-Andimeshk (152 km) expressway
Ahvaz-Bandar Imam Khomeini freeway (175 km).
Ahwaz, being the largest city in the province, consists of two distinctive districts: the newer part of Ahwaz which is the administrative and industrial center, which is built on the right bank of the Karun river while residential areas are found in the old section of the city, on the left bank.
Climate
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Ahwaz has a subtropical hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) with long, hot summers and cool, short winters. Summer temperatures are regularly at least sometimes exceeding with many sandstorms and duststorms common during the summer period. However, in winters, the minimum temperature can fall to around . Winters in Ahvaz have no snow. The average annual rainfall is around 230 mm. On June 29, 2017, the temperature reached . Furthermore, the dew point peaks at which is unusually humid for the usual dry heat. Despite the fact that it has never snowed in Ahvaz, it has fallen down to before.
People
According to the 2016 census, the city had an estimated population of 1.1 million people.
Languages
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Based on a survey taken by the Iranian ministry of culture in 2010, the most common languages in Ahvaz are Persian (44.8%), Arabic (35.7%), and Bakhtiari (15.8%). Many Ahvazis are bilingual, speaking both Persian and one of the following languages/Dialects. The indigenous inhabitants of Ahvaz speak Khuzestani Persian dialect that is unique to Khuzestan, and rooted in old Persian and Elamite languages. The Arabic spoken in Ahvaz is a variety of Khuzestani Arabic. Another part of Ahvazis speak Bakhtiari dialect of Luri language. Modern Mandaic (or Mandaee) language is also spoken among the Mandaeans of Ahvaz. It is a descendant of the Classical Mandaic language that has been partially influenced by Khuzestani Persian.
Pollution
In 2011, the World Health Organization ranked Ahvaz as the world's most air-polluted city. The reason Ahvaz is so polluted is because of its oil industry. The pollution can be very dangerous, causing different types of diseases, and can harmful to plants.
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Transportation
Airport
Ahvaz International Airport (IATA: AWZ, ICAO: OIAW) (Persian: فرودگاه بینالمللی اهواز) is an airport serving the city of Ahvaz, Iran.
Railway
Ahwaz railway station (Persian:ايستگاه راه آهن اهواز, Istgah-e Rah Ahan-e Ahvaz) is located in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province.
Ahwaz is accessible via freeways from Isfahan and Shiraz, and roadways to Tehran.
A metro urban railway system is being built by the Ahvaz urban railway. The system is planned to have a total of four lines. Line 1 will be a 23 km underground line with 24 stations.
Sport
Traditionally, Khuzestan province has been a major soccer hub in Iran. The city has two existing sport complexes: Takhti Stadium and the newly constructed Ghadir Stadium. There are several other smaller complexes for martial arts, swimming pools and gymnasiums. Also, a new privately owned stadium is currently under construction by Foolad F.C. in Ahvaz.
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Sajjad Gharibi (born 19 December 1991) is an Iranian bodybuilder.
He born on Ahwaz, and has lived in Busher. He has become famous in world because of his special physique. His musculus volume is extraordinary for his height, 186 cm (6'2" tall), and weight, 180 kg (390 lb). He has looked like The Incredible Hulk character, because of his size, his Iranian fans have called him Iranian Hulk.
Football
Football is a major part of the city's culture. The abundant enthusiasm has made Ahvaz home to three Iranian major Football clubs: Foolad, Esteghlal Khuzestan are currently playing in the Persian Gulf Pro League, and Esteghlal Ahvaz is playing in Azadegan League.
Foolad have won the league on two occasions, the 2013–2014 season and the 2004–2005 season. Esteghlal Ahvaz finished runners–up in the league in the 2006–2007 season. In 2016, Esteghlal Khuzestan won the league for the first time.
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A number of other teams such as Foolad B the second team of Foolad and Karun Khuzestan play in the 2nd Division.
Futsal
Ahvaz has also two teams in the Iranian Futsal Super League, which are Sherkat Melli Haffari Iran FSC and Gaz Khozestan FSC.
Colleges and universities
Ahvaz is also known for its universities as well as its role in commerce and industry. Ahvaz institutes of higher learning include:
Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences
Petroleum University of Technology
Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz
Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz Branch
Islamic Azad University - Science & Research Branch, Khuzestan
Institute for Higher Education ACECR Khouzestan
Payame Noor University of Ahvaz
Amiralmoemenin University
Rahnama Institute of Higher Education
Notable people
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Ali Sajadi Hoseini, filmmaker
Ali Shamkhani, Iranian Minister of Defense (1997–2005)
Amir Taheri, Iranian conservative author
Ahmad Mahmoud, Persian novelist
Ezzat Negahban, patriarch of modern Iranian archaeology
Hamed Haddadi, NBA basketball player
Hamid Dabashi, intellectual historian, cultural and literary critic
Hamid Zangeneh, economist, author, and activist
Hossein Kaebi, national football player
Jabbar Choheili, Mandaean priest
Jalal Kameli Mofrad, national football player
Mehdi Yarrahi, Iranian Musician
Mehrangiz Kar, human rights activist
Hossein Karimi, bodybuilder
Mohammad Ali Mousavi Jazayeri, former Wali-Faqih representative in Khuzestan, former Ahwaz Friday Imam
Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Iranian economist and diplomat
Mohammad-Reza Eskandari, Iran's former Minister of Agriculture
Muhammad ibn Falah, theologian
Parviz Abnar, Iranian Sound recordist
Patrick Monahan, British comedian
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Manuchehr Shahrokhi, Professor of Finance, California State University; Editor, Global Finance Journal; Executive Director, Global Finance Association-Conference
Sousan S. Altaie, PhD Scientific Policy Advisor, OIVD CDRH, FDA
Saleh Hosseini, Translator, Critic, Professor of English Literature
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Gallery
See also
Ahvaz Field
Choqa Zanbil
Elam
Gundeshapur
History of Iran
Khūzestān Province
Mandaeism, Mandaic language
Politics of Khūzestān
Susa
Takhti Stadium (Ahvaz)
Rahian-e Noor
Al-Ahvaz TV
References
External links
Foolad Ahvaz Football Club
Ardashir I
Cities in Khuzestan Province
Iranian provincial capitals
Populated places in Ahvaz County
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Margalit "Maggie" Ruth Gyllenhaal (; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
Gyllenhaal began her career as a teenager with small roles in several of her father's films, and appeared with her brother in the cult favorite Donnie Darko (2001). She then appeared in Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (both 2002), and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). Gyllenhaal received critical acclaim for her leading performances in the erotic romantic comedy drama Secretary (2002) and the drama Sherrybaby (2006), each of which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. After several commercially successful films in 2006, including World Trade Center, she received wider recognition for playing Rachel Dawes in the superhero film The Dark Knight (2008).
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For her performance as a single mother in Crazy Heart (2009), she received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She subsequently starred in the comedies and dramas: Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010), Hysteria (2011), and Won't Back Down (2012). Her other roles include a Secret Service agent in the action-thriller White House Down (2013), a musician in Frank (2014), and the title role in the drama The Kindergarten Teacher (2018). In 2021, Gyllenhaal made her writing and directing debut with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, for which she won the Venice International Film Festival's Best Screenplay Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Gyllenhaal has also appeared in five stage productions since 2000, including making her Broadway debut in a revival of The Real Thing. She has starred in several television series, including the BBC political-thriller miniseries The Honourable Woman. For her performance, she won a Golden Globe award for Best Actress, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. She also produced and starred in the HBO period drama series The Deuce (2017–19). Gyllenhaal has been married to actor Peter Sarsgaard since 2009 and they have two children together.
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Early life
Gyllenhaal was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (née Achs) and Stephen Gyllenhaal. The first name on Maggie's birth certificate is "Margalit", which she did not discover until 2013, when adopting her husband's surname. Margalit () is a Hebrew word meaning "pearl"; some news stories have spelled it "Margolit". She has two brothers; actor Jake Gyllenhaal and a half-brother named Luke from their father's second marriage.
Her father is a film director and poet, and her mother is a screenwriter and director. Her father, a member of the noble Gyllenhaal family, is of Swedish and English ancestry, and was raised in the Swedenborgian religion. Her last native Swedish ancestor was her great-great-grandfather Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal, a descendant of Leonard Gyllenhaal, a leading Swedenborgian who supported the printing and spreading of Swedenborg's writings.
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Her mother was born in New York City (growing up in Brooklyn), and is Jewish, from Ashkenazi Jewish families that emigrated from Russia and Poland. Her mother's first husband was Eric Foner, a noted historian and history professor at Columbia University. Gyllenhaal has stated that she "grew up mostly Jewish, culturally", and she identifies as Jewish, though she did not attend Hebrew school. Her parents married in 1977, and filed for divorce in October 2008.
Gyllenhaal grew up in Los Angeles and studied at the Harvard–Westlake prep school. She spent four months as a student at The Mountain School, a semester school for high school juniors in Vermont. In 1995, she graduated from Harvard–Westlake and moved to New York to attend Columbia University, where she studied literature and Eastern religions. She also studied acting for a summer term at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, England.
Career
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1992–2001: Early work
At the age of 15, she made a brief appearance in her father's film Waterland (1992). Soon, she had supporting roles in A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998), which were directed by her father, which also featured her brother Jake. With their mother, she and Jake appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. After graduating from college, she had supporting roles in films including Cecil B. Demented (2000) and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001). Gyllenhaal later achieved recognition in her own right playing her real brother's on-screen sister in the indie cult favorite Donnie Darko (2001).
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She made her theatrical debut in the Berkeley Repertory Theatre production of Patrick Marber's Closer, for which she received favorable reviews. Production started in May 2000 and ended in mid-July of that year. Gyllenhaal has performed in several other plays, including The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Butterfly Project, and No Exit.
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2002–2005: Film breakthrough
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Gyllenhaal's breakout role was in the black comedy, Secretary (2002), a film about two people who embark on a mutually fulfilling BDSM lifestyle. The New York Times critic Stephen Holden noted: "The role of Lee, which Maggie Gyllenhaal imbues with a restrained comic delicacy and sweetness, should make her a star." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Maggie Gyllenhaal, as the self-destructive secretary, is enigmatic and, at moments, sympathetic." The film received generally favorable reviews, and Gyllenhaal's performance earned her the Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, her first Golden Globe nomination, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Secretary was Gyllenhaal's first film role which featured full frontal nudity. Impressed with the script, she initially had reservations about doing the film, which she believed could deliver an anti-feminist message. However, after carefully discussing the
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script with the film's director, Steven Shainberg, she agreed to join the project. Although insisting Shainberg did not exploit her, Gyllenhaal has said she felt "scared when filming began" and that "in the wrong hands ... even in just slightly less intelligent hands, this movie could say something really weird." Since then, she is guarded about discussing her role in the film, saying only that "despite myself, sometimes the dynamic that you are exploring in your work spills over into your life."Next, she had a supporting role in the comedy-drama Adaptation (2002), a film that tells the story of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt The Orchid Thief into a film. She later appeared in the unauthorized biography Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), part of an ensemble cast that included Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts. The movie grossed US$33 million worldwide. That same year, she had a small role in the comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights. In
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2003, she co-starred with Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile in the role of Giselle. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, she revealed the reason for accepting the role was "to play somebody who feels confident in herself as a sexy, beautiful woman". The film generated mostly mixed reviews, with Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times describing it as "smug and reductive". Her next roles were in smaller independent films: Casa de los Babys (2003), is a story about six American women impatiently waiting out their lengthy residency requirements in a South American country before picking up their adoptive babies, and Criminal (2004), a remake of the Argentinian film Nine Queens, with John C. Reilly and Diego Luna. Gyllenhaal plays an honest hotel manager forced to help her crooked brother (Reilly) by seducing one of his victims.
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She starred in the HBO film Strip Search (2004), in which she portrayed an American student in China suspected of terrorism. For her role, Gyllenhaal had to perform multiple scenes of full-frontal nudity as the film tackled issues of strip searches. In 2004, Gyllenhaal returned to theater in a Los Angeles production of Tony Kushner's Homebody/ Kabul as Priscilla, the Homebody's daughter, who spends most of the play searching for her elusive mother in Kabul, Afghanistan. Kushner gave her the role in Homebody/ Kabul on the strength of her performance in Closer. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote: "Ms. Gyllenhaal provides the essential bridge between the parts of the play's title." John Heilpern of The New York Observer noted that Gyllenhaal's performance was "compelling". Finally in 2004, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Viewed as a sex symbol, she was ranked in the "Hot 100 List" by Maxim magazine in 2004 and 2005.
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Gyllenhaal's next film role was in the 2005 comedy-drama Happy Endings, in which she played an adventuress singer who seduces a young gay musician (Jason Ritter) as well as his rich father (Tom Arnold). She recorded songs for the film's soundtrack, calling the role the "roughest, scariest acting ever" and adding she is more natural when singing on screen than when acting. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly declared Gyllenhaal's performance "as wonderfully, naturally slouchy-sexy as her character is artificial".
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2006–2009: Comedies, dramas and theatre
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Following Happy Endings, Gyllenhaal appeared in five films releases in 2006: Trust the Man, Stranger than Fiction, Monster House, World Trade Center, and Sherrybaby. In Trust the Man, featuring Julianne Moore, David Duchovny, and Billy Crudup, she played Elaine, who has been dating Tobey, Crudup's character, for seven years and has begun to feel that it is time for her to settle down and start a family. The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. Ethan Alter of Premiere felt that the performances by Gyllenhaal and Duchovny were "much more at ease" and concluded with "that's probably because they're played these characters many times before". In Stranger than Fiction, Gyllenhaal played a love interest of Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell. Her performance in the film received favorable reviews; Mike Straka of Fox News wrote: "Gyllenhaal has never been sexier in any film before and her interplay with Ferrell will propel her to more A-list films, leaving her indie-darling
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days behind, no doubt." She voiced Elizabeth "Zee" in the computer animated horror film Monster House. Gyllenhaal played Allison Jimeno, the wife of Port Authority officer Will Jimeno, in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, based on the September 11 attacks in New York City. She regarded this as "one of the films she most enjoyed making". The film received favorable reviews and proved to be an international success, earning US$162 million worldwide.
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In Sherrybaby, Gyllenhaal played a young drug-addicted thief trying to put her life in order after prison so she can reconcile with her daughter. During promotion of the film, she noted of her portrayal of the character: "I think she's in such dire straits that all she has are these kind of naive, fierce hopes. And while I was playing the part I was looking for pleasure and hope in everything, even in these really bleak things. And so it was really mostly after I finished the movie that I felt pain." Her performance in the film was well-received; David Germain of the Associated Press wrote, "Gyllenhaal humanizes her so deeply and richly ... that Sherry elicits sympathy even in her darkest and weakest moments", and Dennis Harvey of Variety magazine called her performance "naturalistic". For her performance, Gyllenhaal earned a second Golden Globe Best Actress nomination and won the Best Actress category award at the 2006 Stockholm International Film Festival.
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She appeared in The Dark Knight (2008), the sequel to Batman Begins (2005), in which she replaced Katie Holmes as Assistant District Attorney, Rachel Dawes. Gyllenhaal acknowledged her character was a damsel in distress to an extent, but said director Christopher Nolan sought ways to empower her character, so "Rachel's really clear about what's important to her and unwilling to compromise her morals, which made a nice change" from the many conflicted characters she had previously portrayed. The Dark Knight was a critical and commercial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. With revenue of $1 billion worldwide, it became the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, and remains Gyllenhaal's most commercially successful feature to date. In a Salon magazine review of the film, Stephanie Zacharek called Gyllenhaal's character "a tough cookie in a Stanwyck-style bias-cut dress" and stated that "the movie feels smarter and more supple when she's
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on-screen". IGN film critic Todd Gilchrist wrote, "Gyllenhaal adds real depth and energy to Rachel Dawes".
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In addition to film, Gyllenhaal played Yelena Andreevna in the Classic Stage Company's 2009 Off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in New York City. The cast also included her husband Peter Sarsgaard. The production, directed by Austin Pendleton, began previews on January 17 and ended its limited run on March 1. Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News was unenthusiastic about her performance, writing "Gyllenhaal, who was so dynamic as a druggie in the film Sherrybaby, plays Yelena with a slow-mo saunter and monotonous pasted-on smile that makes it seem as if she's been in Sherry's stash." However, Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant was complimentary, noting that she "ultimately blossoms" as the character.
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Gyllenhaal agreed to star in the comedy Away We Go (2009), in which she plays a bohemian college professor who is an old friend of John Krasinski's character. The film generated broadly mixed reviews, with Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly describing Gyllenhaal's subplot as "over-the-top". However, A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised Gyllenhaal and co-star Allison Janney for their performances, writing that "both [are] quite funny". Scott concluded with, "Ms. Gyllenhaal's line about sex roles in 'the seahorse community' is the screenplay's one clean satirical bull's-eye". Her next role came in the musical-drama Crazy Heart, in which she played journalist Jean Craddock, who falls for musician Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges. The film received an acclaimed response, with praise for Gyllenhaal's performance too. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone observed that Gyllenhaal was "funny, touching and vital as Jean" and that her part was "conventionally conceived, but Gyllenhaal
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plays it with a tough core of intelligence and feeling." Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
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2010–2020: The Deuce and other work
In addition to acting, she presented 13 episodes of the PBS television series Independent Lens between 2009–10. The program presents documentary films made by independent filmmakers. In 2010, Gyllenhaal appeared in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang with co-star Emma Thompson, the sequel to the 2005's Nanny McPhee. She played Isabel Green, which required her to speak with an English accent. The feature received generally positive reviews; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 76% based on 119 critics. The Sydney Morning Herald complimented Gyllenhaal's realistic accent and ability to capture her English character with ease. It was a reasonable success at the box office, earning $93 million worldwide.
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For her next film, Gyllenhaal starred in the biographical romance Hysteria (2011), which focuses on the events that led to the creation of the vibrator during the Victorian era. The film received a mixed reception; writing for The Guardian, David Cox noted the film's stereotypes and "yelps of delight", and praised Gyllenhaal's English accent. In February 2011, Gyllenhaal starred in another Anton Chekhov Off-Broadway production as the character Masha in Austin Pendleton's Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company. The play focused on the Prozorov sisters (Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hecht, and Juliet Rylance), who are "unlucky in love, unhappy in the provinces and longing to return to Moscow", as summarized by Bloomberg's Jeremy Gerard. The production began preview performances on January 12, with a limited engagement through March 6.
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In 2012, she played mother Jaime Fitzpatrick in the drama Won't Back Down, about a group of parents involved in a parent trigger takeover of a failing school. Next, she appeared alongside Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, as a Secret Service agent in the action-thriller White House Down (2013). The film was met with mixed reviews and under-performed at the box office. A year later, she starred in the musical comedy Frank, about a man who joins an odd band with a group of bizarre musicians. Gyllenhaal, who also plays a musician, said she initially turned down the role because she did not understand it. However, she changed her mind after the story "stuck with her". The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival to favorable opinions; Slant magazine's critic opined that Gyllenhaal has "passive and palpable screen presence". Also that year, she played Hathfertiti in Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler's River of Fundament, loosely based on the 1983 novel Ancient Evenings by Norman
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Mailer.
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Gyllenhaal played the lead role as Baroness Nessa Stein, a British-Israeli businesswoman heiress in the BBC political spy thriller television miniseries, The Honourable Woman. The series was well received; Kevin Fallon wrote in the Daily Beast: "Gyllenhaal delivers what might be the most towering, complex, best performance of her career in the miniseries." Time magazine praised the series' pacing, themes, settings, and called Gyllenhaal's performance "remarkable". At the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, she won Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her performance. The Honourable Woman appeared in a list of The Guardian critics' 30 best television shows of 2014.
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In 2016, Gyllenhaal narrated Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina; it was made available for purchase on Amazon's Audible store. In an interview, Gyllenhaal said "Making this, doing this, I feel like it's one of the major accomplishments of my work life." In February 2017, she served as a member of the jury for the 2017 Berlin Film Festival. Returning to film in 2018, Gyllenhaal starred in The Kindergarten Teacher, a drama in which her character becomes obsessed with a student whom she believes is a child prodigy. The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was distributed via Netflix. It is a remake of the 2014 Israeli film of the same name. The feature opened to mainly popular reviews; The Daily Telegraph critic gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and thought Gyllenhaal was well-cast, writing "[her] earnest intensity as an actress, gift for fatigue and slightly holier-than-thou authority are key assets here." Although Dennis Harvey of Variety magazine praised her
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performance, he thought the film lacked "psychological insight".
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She served as a producer and starred in the HBO drama series The Deuce, which aired between 2017–19; she played Eileen "Candy" Merrell, a sex worker during the Golden Age of Porn. The Deuce earned Gyllenhaal a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
2021–present
In 2021, Gyllenhaal made her feature directorial debut with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, which she also produced and wrote. The film received critical acclaim, and had its premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where Gyllenhaal won the Best Screenplay Award. It received four awards, including Best Feature and Breakthrough Director, as well as one further nomination at the 2021 Gotham Awards. At the 79th Golden Globe Awards, Gyllenhaal received a nomination for Best Director. She then received a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 75th British Academy Film Awards, and the second Academy Award nomination of her career also for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards.
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Personal life
In 2002, Gyllenhaal began a relationship with actor Peter Sarsgaard. The couple became engaged in April 2006, and married on May 2, 2009, in a small chapel in Brindisi, Italy. They have two daughters, Ramona (born 2006) and Gloria Ray (born 2012). The family lived in a townhouse in Park Slope, Brooklyn. In 2019, they listed their townhouse for sale.
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Political views
At the 18th Independent Spirit Awards in 2003, she spoke out against the Iraq war, stating the reason for the invasion was "oil and imperialism". In 2005, Gyllenhaal drew controversy for her statement that the September 11 attacks were "an occasion to be brave enough to ask some serious questions about America's role in the world ... It is always useful as individuals or nations to ask how we may have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to this conflict." Gyllenhaal took part in Artists United to Win Without War, a campaign started by Robert Greenwald that aimed to advance progressive causes and voicing opposition to the Iraq War.
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She and her brother Jake filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote, and visited the University of Southern California to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, in which she supported John Kerry. Gyllenhaal supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. She has campaigned on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization her family strongly supports. In June 2013, Gyllenhaal and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
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Charity work
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